Bloomberg:

• Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Climbed Last Week. More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, signaling firings stepped up as the economy slowed. Initial jobless claims rose by 2,000 to 484,000 in the week ended Aug. 7, the highest level since mid February, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Companies may be losing confidence in the recovery and are hesitant to hire, raising the risk of further erosion in consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy. Economists forecast claims would fall to 465,000, according to the median of 42 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. The four-week moving average of claims climbed to 473,500 from 459,250, today’s report showed.
  
• Sovereign Debt Risk Surges as Slowdown May Deepen Deficit Woes. A gauge of government bond risk rose to the highest level in five weeks on concern Europe’s deficit crisis will worsen as slowing economic growth exacerbates bank bailout costs. The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of credit- default swaps on 15 governments rose for a seventh day, climbing 4 basis points to 140, according to data provider CMA. The gauge is the highest since July 7 and up from a three-month low of 109.5 on Aug. 3. Swaps on Ireland climbed to a 17-month high on speculation the $32 billion bailout bill for Anglo Irish Bank Corp. will add to the country’s fiscal deficit. The cost of the Anglo bailout may trigger a surge in Ireland’s budget deficit to 25 percent of GDP this year, before dropping to 10 percent in 2011, analysts at Dublin-based Davy Research wrote in a note today. The European Union limit for members of the euro area is 3 percent. Default swaps on Ireland climbed 15 basis points to 286, the highest since March 2009, CMA prices show. Contracts on Anglo Irish jumped 17.5 to 551.5, Allied Irish Banks Plc increased 17.5 to 441 and Irish Life & Permanent Group Holdings Plc rose 14.5 to 337. Germany may also have to absorb the holdings of two so- called bad banks, raising the nation’s debt to 90 percent of gross domestic product, Die Zeit reported. Contracts on Germany increased 3 basis points to 47, the highest since June 29. Swaps on Greece jumped 17.5 basis points to 809.5 as the wage-cuts and tax increases that aim to trim the European Union’s second-biggest budget deficit deepened a recession. Contracts on Portugal climbed 8.5 basis points to 277, Italy rose 10 to 182 and Spain was 7 higher at 221. The cost of insuring corporate debt against default also rose with the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index of swaps linked to 50 companies with mostly high-yield credit ratings increasing 16 basis points to 520, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co., the highest in three weeks. The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings climbed 4.25 basis points to 116.25, and the Markit iTraxx Financial Index of 25 banks and insurers rose 5.5 to 137.5, JPMorgan prices show.
• Wheat, Corn Stockpiles Dwindle After Russia's Drought. The world’s appetite for meat, flour and ethanol is expanding faster than the supply of the crops needed to produce them, eroding inventories and increasing the chance of accelerating food prices. Wheat stockpiles may slip to a two-year low as demand rises and a drought damages the crop in Russia, whose exports will plunge 84 percent, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today. Inventories of corn, used to feed livestock and make fuel, will be little changed from a year earlier, even as output rises to a record, the USDA said.
• Crude Oil Falls a Third Day as U.S. Jobless Claims Increase. Crude oil declined for a third day after U.S. jobless claims increased, bolstering concern that economic growth will slow and fuel demand will drop. Oil decreased as much as 2.5 percent as initial jobless claims rose by 2,000 to 484,000 last week, the highest level since February. Yesterday, a government report showed that U.S. gasoline supplies climbed for a seventh week and stockpiles of distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, advanced to the highest level since January 1983. U.S. gasoline supplies rose 409,000 barrels to 223.4 million, according to an Energy Department report yesterday. The gain left stockpiles 8.6 percent higher than the five-year average for the week. Inventories of distillate fuel climbed 3.46 million barrels to 173.1 million, 27 percent higher than the five-year average. Crude oil supplies declined 2.99 million barrels to 355 million in the week ended Aug. 6, the report showed. Stockpiles were 8.1 percent higher than the five-year average for the period, the department said. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will reduce shipments this month as refineries close for maintenance, according to tanker-tracker Oil Movements. “There is a developing argument that Eastern demand isn’t particularly strong,” Roy Mason, Oil Movements founder, said today by phone from Halifax, England.
• Shanghai's July New Mortgage Loans Slump 98% on Curbs. Shanghai’s new mortgage loans plunged 98 percent in July from a year earlier as a government crackdown on property speculation deterred investors from buying homes in China’s richest city. Loans dropped by 11.4 billion yuan ($1.68 billion) to 270 million yuan, the lowest in at least a year, the Shanghai branch of the People’s Bank of China said in an e-mailed statement today. The amount was 91 percent lower than the previous month. Real estate prices stalled nationwide in July and transaction volumes slumped 29 percent from a month earlier, a government survey showed on Aug. 10. New home sales in Shanghai fell 11 percent in the week ended Aug. 8 from the previous seven days to 137,000 square meters, according to property consultant Shanghai UWin Real Estate Information Services Co. Choi sees home prices declining a further 20 percent by the end of the year as China maintains its tightening measures on the property market.
• Market Fragmentation Shows High-Frequency Hazard. The May 6 crash shows how the fragmentation of U.S. stock trading across 50 venues dominated by computerized traders is hurting investors, executives from Invesco Ltd. and TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said.
• GM's Whitacre Says Akerson Will Take Over as CEO. General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Ed Whitacre, who led the largest U.S. automaker from bankruptcy to two straight profitable quarters, will step down as CEO on Sept. 1 and be replaced by director Dan Akerson. Akerson, 61, also will take over the 68-year-old Whitacre’s role as chairman at the end of the year, Detroit-based GM said today.

Wall Street Journal:

• Food Makers Chew Over Prices. Nestlé SA has joined a growing list of global food makers warning about higher prices for key commodities like tea and cocoa, which could pinch margins and ripple through the grocery store in the remainder of the year.
• Blagojevich Jurors Agree on Just Two Counts. Jurors in the corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his brother have reached agreement on just two of the 28 combined counts against the pair after 12 days of deliberation.
• Economists Want Policy Makers to Back Off. Economists are getting more pessimistic about the strength of the recovery, but they don't think policy makers should do anything more to support it, according to the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.
• The Blame Bush Strategy Won't Work.
  

CNBC:

• Bank Repossessions Drive Up US Foreclosures. More Americans fell into foreclosure in July as a sour job market kept them from making payments, and banks took over homes at a near record pace.

NY Times:

• Debts Rise, and Go Unpaid, as Bust Erodes Home Equity. During the great housing boom, homeowners nationwide borrowed a trillion dollars from banks, using the soaring value of their houses as security. Now the money has been spent and struggling borrowers are unable or unwilling to pay it back. The delinquency rate on home equity loans is higher than all other types of consumer loans, including auto loans, boat loans, personal loans and even bank cards like Visa and MasterCard, according to the American Bankers Association. Lenders say they are trying to recover some of that money but their success has been limited, in part because so many borrowers threaten bankruptcy and because the value of the homes, the collateral backing the loans, has often disappeared. The result is one of the paradoxes of the recession: the more money you borrowed, the less likely you will have to pay up.
• Chinese Hospitals Are Battlegrounds of Discontent. Forget the calls by many Chinese patients for more honest, better-qualified doctors. What this city’s 27 public hospitals really needed, officials decided last month, was police officers. And not just at the entrance, but as deputy administrators. The goal: to keep disgruntled patients and their relatives from attacking the doctors.

Business Insider:

• Government Bails Out Bank CEO After He Expenses Mansion, Jaguar, And Porsche. Inside the Maxine Waters' ethics trial case comes the story of the government bailing out a corrupt Boston bank that Waters' husband owned stock in and sat on the board of. When Kevin Cohee, the CEO and Chairman of OneUnited, asked the government to loan the bank $50 million in TARP funds, it was discovered that Cohee had expensed quite a lifestyle to the bank's account.

Zero Hedge:

• 14th Sequential Week of Equity Outflows. We have now had over a quarter of non-stop redemptions by mutual funds, which of course means, by end-retail investors.

Forbes:

• Environmental Groups Call for Drilling Ban in Michigan Constitution.
• Wall Street Plays Uncle Same Like a Fiddle In Matters of Finance. Congress does the bidding of some of its biggest patrons, the titans of Wall Street. Don't expect real reform.

Washington Post:

• SEC Enforcement Division Granted Permanent Subpoena Powers. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday quietly made permanent a vast expansion of the power of its enforcement division's ability to subpoena documents and compel testimony. The move should ensure that investigators can move swiftly to pursue cases of financial wrongdoing. But some securities lawyers warn that it could lead to excessive costs as well as unfair treatment for the executives and companies that are targets of SEC probes.

AppleInsider:

• iPhone 4 Remains Sold Out at Half of Apple's(AAPL) US Retail Stores. The iPhone 4 remains in limited stock at Apple's U.S. retail stores seven weeks after its launch, suggesting that "antennagate" has done little to slow sales.

Rasmussen Reports:

• Daily Presidential Tracking Poll. The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 25% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as president. Forty-five percent (45%) Strongly Disapprove, giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -20 (see trends).

Reuters:

• Russia may not have grain available for export after a ban on outbound shipments ends Dec. 31, citing data from the Agriculture Ministry.
• ICE(ICE) Cuts Staff at Chicago Climate Exchange -Sources. Market operator Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE) is laying off staff at newly acquired U.S. environmental bourse the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), industry sources told Reuters, citing a lack of U.S. action on climate change. They said the first round of layoffs began on July 23 and, although the total number of jobs to be cut was unknown, one said around 25 employees, or roughly half CCX's headcount at the time of ICE's acquisition, had already been or were being let go.
• Mortgage Rates Hit Fresh Lows on Soft U.S. Economy. Home loan rates set new lows in the latest week on more evidence of a soft U.S. economy and high unemployment, home funding company Freddie Mac said on Thursday. The average 30-year mortgage rate fell to 4.44 percent in the week ended Aug. 12, the lowest since Freddie Mac records began in 1971. The prior record low was 4.49 percent a week ago, which was well below 5.29 percent a year ago.

Telegraph:

• 'Flash Crash' Curbs Under Discussion by US Regulators. The so-called "flash crash" that saw the Dow Jones index plunge almost 1,000-points in 45 minutes could see US regulators restrict the range shares can move in a single day.

Xinhua:

• China Mobile Ltd. and the Xinhua News Agency signed a framework agreement today to establish a search engine joint venture.

Beijing Times:

• BYD Co. sales fell 6.5% to 33,046 vehicles in July from June, citing a person from the company. Sales in July rose 4% year-on-year, the report said.