Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Italy's Debt Highest Since Dictator Mussolini: Chart. Italy’s public debt rose to the highest level since Benito Mussolini won elections 89 years ago, paving the way for his 20-year dictatorship. The CHART OF THE DAY shows debt jumped in 2012 to 127 percent of gross domestic product from 120.8 percent a year earlier. That’s the most since 1924, when Mussolini won 64 percent of the popular vote in elections that opposition members said were marked by irregularities.
• Grillo’s Party May Consider Senate Walk-Out on Gridlock. Beppe Grillo’s senators-elect, who hold a blocking minority in Italy’s upper house of parliament, may consider staging a confidence-vote walk-out to allow a political rival to form a government and ease gridlock. Grillo’s Five Star Movement is seeking to influence the program of Italy’s next government and would require policy concessions in exchange for a walk-out, said two senators-elect who declined to be identified because no deal has been made. Five Star won’t vote to support any government, they said.
• Trichet Says Policies Aimed at Weaker Currencies Detrimental. Former European Central Bank president Jean-Claude Trichet said policies targeted at weakening a country’s exchange rate can trigger competitive devaluations without having any benefit. “We know that these kind of policies are not positive for all participants,” Trichet said in an interview in Tokyo today. “If all currencies are going down it doesn’t change anything.”
• Euro Approaches Three-Month Low Versus Dollar on Italy Concern. The euro approached the lowest level in almost three months against the dollar as Italy moved toward a new election and before data this week economists said will show the region’s economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2012.
• China Property Shares Drag CSI 300 Down Most in 2 Years on Curbs. China’s stocks plunged, dragging down the CSI 300 (SHSZ300) Index by the most in two years, after the government ordered more measures to cool property prices and growth in the nation’s services industries slowed. The CSI 300, representing the nation’s biggest companies in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, fell 4.6 percent to 2,545.72 at the close, the most since November 2010, while the Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) slid 3.7 percent to 2,273.40, the most since August 2011. China Vanke Co., the nation’s largest property developer, led a gauge of real-estate companies to the steepest tumble since June 2008. Anhui Conch Cement Co. and Sany Heavy Industry Co. dropped by more than 8 percent.
• Crude Drops Below $90 on Signs of Slowing Chinese Growth. West Texas Intermediate crude fell below $90 a barrel for the first time in 2013 as service industries in China expanded at the weakest pace in five months, adding to speculation that demand growth is slowing. Prices declined for the seventh time in nine days as the expansion of the non-manufacturing industry in China, the world’s largest oil-consuming country after the U.S., was the slowest since September. Measures released March 1 pointed to manufacturing growth cooling. Money managers cut bets on rising oil prices in the week ended Feb. 26, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Wall Street Journal: 

• China Housing Move Sends a Jolt. An aggressive move by China's government to strike at once-again-surging property prices shows rising concern that repeated tightening measures haven't brought prices fully under control.
• Wealthier Households Carry the Spending Load. 
• PIMCO Warns Italian Bond Market Uncertainty to Remain. The current bout of volatility in the Italian government bond market is expected to persist as the fall-out and political stalemate from the recent Italian election continues to hold sway, according to a senior manager at one of the world's most influential bond investors.

MarketWatch: 

• Fed’s Yellen: Full steam ahead on QE3. While there are some potential costs to the purchases, “at this stage, I do not see any that would cause me to advocate a curtailment of our purchase program,” she said. Yellen is seen as a possible replacement for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke if he steps aside when his second term ends in January 2014.
• China’s top real-estate CEO sees housing bubble, hopes leaders can fix it: report.
  When asked whether homes in China were too expensive, Wang simply answered yes. He told CBS that the average resident trying to buy an apartment in Shanghai would have to pay more than 45 times his or her annual salary. And when asked if there was currently a bubble in the Chinese property market, he said: “yes of course.”

Fox News:

• Employers hoping for an end to labor pains after NLRB picks ruled 'unconstitutional’.

CNBC: 

• Investors Jump Big Into Bull Market, Buying Apple(AAPL) & Facebook(FB): Survey. Retail investors fully embraced this bull market in February, looking past any threat from the sequester crisis in Washington, D.C., and buying stocks more aggressively than they have in three years, according to a sentiment index from TD Ameritrade.

Zero Hedge: 

• Consumer Health Diagnosis "Grim" As Four Out Of Five Spending Indicators Disappoint. (graphs)
• All Roads Lead To Rome.
• Germany's Revenge: Peugeot German New Car Registrations Collapse by 41%.
• Italian Spreads To Worst In 3 Months Amid Sideways European Day. (graphs)
• The Two Eras Of Financial Globalization: A Flashing Red Warning. (graph)
• Gundlach Says Stocks "Obviously Overbought", Buys "More Long-Term Treasuries In Last Month Than In Four Years".

Business Insider: 

• A Small Band Of German Professors Is The Hottest New Threat To The Future Of The Euro.
• The Fed Is Starting To Prepare For A Future PR Nightmare. The possibility of suspending remittances and carrying unrealized losses could complicate the Fed’s relationships with the rest of Washington and the public. While remittances help the federal government pay down debt, any shortfall in operating income leading to a suspension of remittances would require the Fed to borrow from Treasury. And while unrealized losses have no effect on Fed operations because of the way government accounts for them, they would leave a private company technically insolvent. It is unclear how Washington and the public might react to these circumstances and whether the Fed’s independence might be challenged.
• Barack Obama's Approval Rating Is In An Incredible Tailspin.
• Goldman Sachs(GS) Has Already Figured A Way Around Regulation To Some Of The Riskiest Investments On Wall Street.

CNN:

• World's Biggest Mall a China 'Ghost Town'. New South China Mall in Guangdong Province opened in 2005. With 5 million square feet of shopping area, the mall can accommodate 2,350 stores, making it the largest shopping center in the world in terms of leasable space -- more than twice the size of Mall of America, the biggest shopping center in the United States. At the outdoor plaza, hundreds of palm-trees blend with a replica Arc de Triomphe, a giant Egyptian sphinx, fountains and long-stretching canals with gondolas. Only problem is, the mall is virtually deserted.

New York Times:

• China’s Push to Cool Down Housing Raises Questions. Chinese shares fell the most in two years on Monday as the Shanghai stock exchange’s property index tumbled 9.25 percent. Late on Friday, China’s State Council had announced a new set of policies designed to cool down the housing market.

Reuters:

• World stock funds start year with record high demand -TrimTabs. Funds that invest in world stocks attracted $55.1 billion in new cash from investors in the first two months of the year, a record sum according to research firm TrimTabs Investment Research. The funds, which include mutual funds and exchange-traded funds based in the United States that hold world stocks, exceeded the previous two-month record of $49.1 billion at the start of 2006, the research firm said.
• Brazil stocks fall on global growth concerns.

Financial Times:

• Warning signs for US corporate bonds. Could the bond boom be turning? Warning signs are flashing as investors demand higher yields even on US bonds issued by the world’s largest and safest corporate borrowers.

Telegraph:

• Japan pledge for bold action sparks currency war fears. The man set to head Japan’s central bank has pledged to do “everything possible” to propel the country out of its deflation trap, raising fears that a falling yen will spark a currency war.

Handelsblatt:

• Some ECB policy makers think it should exit Troika because involvement risks central bank's independence.

Le Figaro:

• French Transaction Tax Will Miss 2013 Target. The tax will bring in EU600m to EU800m in 2013, compared with the target of EU1.6b. On the NYSE-Euronext, trading in shares subject to the tax fell 21% between August and November 2012, compared with a 10% drop for shares that are exempt.