Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Consumer Spirits Lift as Economic Recovery Accelerates. Confidence among U.S. consumers increased in December to a six-month high, coinciding with stronger holiday sales that show the economy is gathering speed. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 74.2 from 71.6 at the end of November. Economists projected a December sentiment reading of 72.5, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The survey’s measure of current conditions, which reflects Americans’ perceptions of their financial situation and whether it is a good time to buy big-ticket items like cars, increased to 85.7, the highest since January 2008, from 82.1 a month earlier. Consumer expectations for six months from now, which more closely projects the direction of consumer spending, increased to a six-month high of 66.8 from 64.8. Higher stock prices this month and signs tax rates will be kept from increasing may prop up Americans’ spirits. Since the end of November through yesterday, the S&P 500 gained 4.4 percent. President Barack Obama this week agreed with Republicans to prolong income-tax cuts put in place by former President George W. Bush. The National Retail Federation forecast November to December sales will rise by 2.3 percent from the same time in 2009, making it the best holiday shopping season in four years. The ICSC said it expects December sales to rise as much as 3.5 percent compared with last year. The Michigan survey showed that buying plans for household durable goods rose to the highest level since January 2008. The proportion of Americans saying they were hearing of job gains rose to the highest level since 1983.
• China Increases Banks' Reserve Ratios to Cool Prices. China ordered lenders to park more money with the central bank for the third time in five weeks to counter the threat from inflation after November’s lending and trade surplus topped analysts’ estimates. Reserve requirements will increase 50 basis points starting Dec. 20, the People’s Bank of China said on its website today. Policy makers refrained from adding to October’s interest- rate increase, ahead of data tomorrow that may show inflation accelerated to the fastest pace since July 2008. An interest-rate increase would be “a more potent weapon” and is likely this weekend, said Shen Jianguang, a Hong Kong- based economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.
• Junk Bucks Slump With Tightest Spread Since '08: Credit Markets. Junk bonds are becoming a haven for fixed-income investors roiled by mounting losses in government, investment-grade corporate and municipal debt. Gains of 0.8 percent this month on high-yield, high-risk bonds compare with losses of 1.9 percent for Treasuries, 1.5 percent on high-grade company notes and 1.4 percent on state and local debt, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. Relative yields on junk bonds versus higher-rated corporates narrowed to 388 basis points, or 3.88 percentage points, a level that hasn’t been breached in three years.
• Oil Drops as China Orders Banks to Increase Reserves on Inflation Concern. Crude oil fell after China ordered lenders to park more money with the central bank for the third time in five weeks to counter inflation, potentially slowing economic growth and fuel demand. Prices slipped as much as 1.4 percent after the People’s Bank of China said reserve requirements will increase 50 basis points starting Dec. 20. “The increase in reserve requirements is probably the first shot across the bow,” said Phil Flynn, a Chicago-based analyst and trader with investment adviser PFGBest. “The market is concerned that the Chinese will follow this move with an interest-rate increase over the weekend.”
• UN Climate Talks Risk 'Hissy Fit' as Richer, Poorer Nations Remain at Odds. Envoys at United Nations climate talks were locked in negotiations during the final day of a two- week conference as 193 nations remained divided about how to curb global warming. “There’s a real danger that if we don’t get a successful outcome that this becomes a zombie process,” Chris Huhne, Britain’s Cabinet minister in charge of energy, said today in Cancun, Mexico. “There is potentially nothing to stop one or more countries from having a hissy fit and throwing all of their toys out of the pram.”
• Tiffany(TIF) Short Sellers Battered as Stock Price Jumps to Highest Since 1987.
• Occidental(OXY) to Buy U.S. Fields, Sell Argentine Wells. Occidental Petroleum Corp., the U.S. energy company that’s selling its Argentine wells to China’s largest refiner, agreed to buy oil and natural-gas fields in Texas and North Dakota for $3.2 billion.
• Boehner Pledges 5% House Budget Cut as a Start on Deficit. Incoming U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, saying reduced government spending begins at home, promised to seek a 5 percent cut in the chamber’s legislative budget as one of the first steps when Republicans take control next year. Republicans, who captured the House from Democrats in the November election with a net gain of 63 seats, campaigned on a pledge to decrease government spending to 2008 levels. That would require Congress to find $100 billion in cuts next year.
• Budget Gap in U.S. Widened More Than Forecast Last Month as Spending Rose. The U.S. government posted a wider budget deficit in November as spending swelled compared with the same time last year when a shift in the timing of payments for programs like Medicare and Social Security damped outlays. The deficit was $150.4 billion last month, exceeding the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, compared with $120.3 billion in November 2009, according to the Treasury Department’s budget statement released in Washington. For the first two months of the 2011 fiscal year, the shortfall narrowed to $290.8 billion from $296.7 billion in the same period last year as revenue improved.

CNBC:

• What to Do if All Those Bullish Call for '11 Are Right. If all these forecasters are right about the big jump the stock market is supposed to take in 2011, then investors had better get busy.
• China Overbuilding to 'Hit a Wall': Chanos. The overdependence on new real estate in China, when the demand isn't there, will cause the nation to eventually "hit a wall," hedge fund manager James Chanos told CNBC Friday. “Construction is 60-plus percent of GDP, compared to exports of 5,” said Chanos, who is the founder and president of Kynikos Associates. “The problem is that consumption as a percentage of Chinese economy has declined in the last 10 years, from 40 to 35 percent. It’s all real estate,” he said. Chanos said that steel, iron ore, cement and other materials needed for construction will be "under pressure." China has built new cities that are now essentially empty, he added. Despite the overbuilding, said Chanos, construction continues at a good clip, with 12 million to 15 million residential units this year. The units, priced similar to those for US residents, are intended for Chinese who earn about $3,500 annually and are in the bottom 20 percent of wage earners. Ironically, many of the Chinese who've moved to cities from the country are construction workers, he noted. “When construction is 60 percent of your economy, and you are building lots of things that people don’t need, the state may let this get out of control,” he said. “It’s hard to manage this type of bubble.” Chanos predicted that America would fare better, should the China bubble burst, because the US doesn’t export as heavily to China as do Europe, other countries in Asia and Latin America.

Business Insider:

• Meet Michael Hintze And The 21 Best Performing Hedge Fund Managers of 2010.
• Instant MBA: Keep an Eye on the Shopping Habits of Generation Z for a Glimpse at Future Trends.
  

The Detroit News:

• Ford(F), Honda Win Loyalty Survey. More than 60 percent of Ford owners say they'll stick with the brand for their next cars, according to a J.D. Power and Associates study revealed Thursday. It was a milestone for Dearborn-based Ford Motor Co., whose Ford brand tied for first place with Honda Motor Co.'s Honda brand as the top two lines in customer loyalty.

Switched:

• See Photos of WikiLeaks' James Bond-Like Data Headquarters. If you thought Julian Assange and his team of WikiLeakers were wreaking global havoc from some decrepit, dank basement in northern Europe, guess again. The Daily Mail recently ran some photos of the Pionen data center -- a cave carved out of granite under Stockholm's Vita Berg Park, where WikiLeaks reportedly houses all of its files. And, as you can see, the photos are pretty unbelievable.
  

Reuters:

• Investors Buy Stocks, Dump Debt on US Tax Deal - EPFR. A tax deal between the White House and opposition Republican lawmakers pushed investors to load up on equities while nearly eschewing bonds in the week ended Dec. 8, fund-tracker EPFR Global said on Friday. The compromise deal, which still awaits Congressional approval, would extend all Bush-era tax cuts for two years. For the week, investors put a collective $13.71 billion net new cash into equity funds, with $3.1 billion going into emerging markets. Bond funds narrowly avoided a third week of outflows, with a net $146 million of fresh cash. The tax deal helped global equity funds to take in "just shy of $2 billion, making it the best week for this fund group since late January 2007." Money market funds hit a 22-week high of $32.5 billion. "This week's tepid bond fund inflows highlight the recent shift towards equities," said Brad Durham, global managing director at EPFR.
• Fed to Buy About $105 Billion of Treasuries Dec. 13 - Jan. 11.
• Insider Trading Arrests Coming Soon - CNBC. U.S. authorities could announce a series of arrests in the next phase of a long-running insider trading investigation as early as next week, CNBC said in a report on Friday.
• US Leading Economic Growth Gauge at Highest Point Since May - ECRI.
  

The Guardian:

• Burma 'Building Nuclear Sites'. Witnesses in Burma have seen missile and nuclear sites being built in remote locations with support from North Korea, according to the latest US cables released by WikiLeaks.

Corriere della Sera:

• Germany is pro euro "head to toe" and won't relinquish sovereignty over its debt management to support the sale of euro-region bonds, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said. The possibility of euro-region countries pooling their national debt to collectively share risk is "unacceptable," Westerwelle said. Such a plan wouldn't give more profligate countries "an incentive to maintain discipline" if they knew that others were guaranteeing their borrowing, he said.

Xinhua:

• China's export growth may slow next year as the world economy is projected to weaken, reducing the demand for Chinese goods, citing researcher Zhang Yansheng at the National Development and Reform Commission. The yuan is also "under pressure to appreciate," reducing profits for exporters while inflation may increase production costs, citing researcher Li Jian at the Ministry of Commerce.