Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• IMF Reduces Global Growth Outlook as U.S. Expansion Weakens. World economic growth will struggle to accelerate this year as a U.S. expansion weakens, China’s economy levels off and Europe’s recession deepens, the International Monetary Fund said. Global growth will be 3.1 percent this year, unchanged from the 2012 rate, and less than the 3.3 percent forecast in April, the Washington-based fund said today, trimming its prediction for this year a fifth consecutive time. The IMF reduced its 2013 projection for the U.S. to 1.7 percent growth from 1.9 percent in April, while next year’s outlook was trimmed to 2.7 percent from 3 percent initially reported in April. “Downside risks to global growth prospects still dominate,” the IMF said in an update to its World Economic Outlook. It cited “the possibility of a longer growth slowdown in emerging market economies, especially given risks of lower potential growth, slowing credit, and possibly tighter financial conditions if the anticipated unwinding of monetary policy stimulus in the U.S. leads to sustained capital flow reversals.”

• Chinese Cash Squeeze Causes Auto Dealer Panic, Group Says. China’s money-market squeeze, which sent interbank borrowing costs soaring last month, may prompt auto dealers to cut vehicle orders and slow expansion plans to conserve cash, according to an industry group. “The cash crunch has led to psychological panic among dealers over access to financing,” Luo Lei, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said in a telephone interview from Beijing today. “So far, it hasn’t caused any real damage to the industry, but if the cash crunch continues, the impact will spread to auto dealers.” About 28 percent of dealers surveyed said they felt “anxious” about their funds last month, up from 11 percent in May, the trade body said in a statement today. Only 21 percent of respondents said they had ease of access to financing in June, down 27 percentage points from a month earlier, the survey showed. The survey’s findings add to signs that the cash squeeze has spread beyond non-financial companies.

• China Central Bank Tightens Rules on Interbank Bond Trading. China’s central bank is tightening rules on interbank bond market trading by ordering all transactions to be conducted through the National Interbank Funding Center as it seeks to boost transparency. Transactions including forward deals and repurchases can’t be reversed or changed once agreed between the two parties, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement posted on its website today. Clearing agencies should not engage in settling trades outside the interbank market, according to the statement. Alterations to bond ownership, such as inheritance that are not related to trading, must be supported by legal documents explaining the nature of the transaction, it said.

• Italy’s Credit Rating Cut to BBB by S&P; Outlook Is Negative. Italy’s credit rating was lowered to BBB, or two levels above junk, by Standard & Poor’s because of expectations for a further weakening of economic prospects and the nation’s impaired financial system. The outlook on the rating, reduced from BBB+, remains negative, the New York-based ratings company said in a statement today. Italy’s economic output in the first quarter of 2013 was 8 percent lower than in the last quarter of 2007 and continues to fall, S&P said. The company lowered its growth forecast for 2013 to minus 1.9 percent, from minus 1.4 percent, in part because of the rigidities in the labor and product markets.

• British Manufacturing Decline Casts Doubt on Recovery: Economy. U.K. manufacturing unexpectedly shrank in May amid a drop in pharmaceuticals and metals output, casting doubts on the strength of the economic recovery in the second quarter. Factory output fell 0.8 percent from April, when it declined 0.2 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London. The median forecast of 25 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was a 0.4 percent increase.

• European Stocks Advance as Alcoa Boosts Earnings Optimism. European stocks rose to the highest level in almost a month as Alcoa Inc. started the U.S. earnings-reporting season with results that beat analysts’ estimates. Mining companies led gains after Alcoa said China will lead an increase in global aluminum demand. Electricite de France SA jumped the most since October 2008 after a report that the utility will increase its tariff. LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA added 2.1 percent after it agreed to acquire 80 percent of Italian clothier Loro Piana SpA. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index gained 0.8 percent to 294.58, its highest level since June 10.

• Tepco’s ‘Fukushima Fifty’ Leader Yoshida Dies of Cancer. Masao Yoshida, the plant manager who led the fight to bring Japan’s Fukushima atomic station under control during the 2011 nuclear disaster, has died. He was 58. He died on July 9 at a hospital in Tokyo, according to a statement from Tokyo Electric Power Co (9501)., the operator of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant. The cause was esophageal cancer, the statement said. The illness was unrelated to the radiation exposure after the nuclear accident, according to Tepco, as Tokyo Electric is known.

• Yen Tumbling 9% Splits Top Forecasters From Futures: Currencies. The most accurate foreign-exchange forecasters expect the yen to fall about 9 percent this year to levels not seen since 2008, putting them in opposition to futures traders who are paring bets on a decline.

• Egypt Sets Poll Timetable as Killings Threaten Transition. Egypt named former Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi to serve as interim premier, leading a government that will have to oversee elections and revive a crumbling economy to end a deepening crisis following the ouster of Islamist leader Mohamed Mursi.

• FedEx(FDX) Rises on Speculation Bill Ackman May Acquire Stake. FedEx Corp. (FDX) rose the most in 19 months on speculation that it may be an investment target for William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP, an Edward Jones analyst said. The stock increased 6.2 percent to $105 at 11:21 a.m. in New York trading, after jumping 7.3 percent for the largest intraday increase since December 2011.

Wall Street Journal: 

• `Abenomics’ Brings an IPO Flood.

Fox News:

• GOP to White House: ObamaCare delay for businesses unfair to everyone else. House Republican leaders on Tuesday urged the Obama administration to grant everybody a reprieve from the ObamaCare insurance mandate, suggesting the recent decision to delay only the requirement on businesses would be unfair to everyone else. "We agree with you that the burden was overwhelming for employers, but we also believe American families need the same relief," House Speaker John Boehner and several other top Republicans wrote in a letter to President Obama. 

MarketWatch:

• NYSE Euronext(NYX) to take over Libor; terms unknown.

CNBC: 

• Hold That 'Pig': GOP's Corker Says of Obamacare. (video) The catastrophic crash of an oil-laden freight train in a small Quebec town last weekend will bring more scrutiny to the railroad industry's transport of oil and may boost the case for pipeline development.

• Fatal Oil Train Disaster Brings Scrutiny to Oil-by-Rail Boom. The catastrophic crash of an oil-laden freight train in a small Quebec town last weekend will bring more scrutiny to the railroad industry's transport of oil and may boost the case for pipeline development.

Zero Hedge: 

• Presenting China's First Too Big To Fail "Lack Of Liquidity" Casualty.

• Egypt: 6 Charts And 2 Scenarios.

• Meet America's Second Largest Employer: A Temp Agency.

• Exposing The Lie Behind The Nonfarm Payroll Numbers. (graphs)

• Kermit Krushed By Latest Stolpering As Asmussen Sends EURUSD Under 1.2800.

Business Insider: 

• A Complete Analysis Of Egypt's Textbook Coup.

• The New York Times Eviscerates Eliot Spitzer And Anthony Weiner.

New York Times:

• Crisis-Struck Europeans Losing Faith in Governments. Less than 10 percent of people in the European countries hardest hit by the sovereign debt crisis believe that their leaders are doing a good job at fighting corruption, reflecting a crisis of faith in government since the crisis crippled much of the euro zone in 2008, an anti-corruption group has found. A global survey of people’s views on corruption by Transparency International, released on Tuesday, revealed a deep disconnect between elected leaders and the people they govern. Roughly half of the 114,000 people surveyed viewed political parties as the most corrupt institutions, and more than half think their governments are run by special interest groups, the survey showed.

NYPost: 

• IRS mistakenly posted 100,000 Social Security numbers to gov't website: group. The IRS mistakenly posted the Social Security numbers of tens of thousands of Americans on a government website, the agency confirmed Monday night. One estimate put the figure as high as 100,000 names. The numbers were posted to an IRS database for tax-exempt political groups known as 527s and first discovered by the group Public.Resource.org.

Reuters:

• Kroger(KR) to buy Harris Teeter(HTSI) for $2.5 billion, shares rise. Kroger Co said on Tuesday it would buy regional grocer Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc in a $2.5 billion deal, the latest in a string of grocery industry consolidations. 

• METALS-Copper falls on strong dollar, China growth worries. Copper fell on Tuesday as the dollar rose and Chinese inflation data reinforced worries about slowing growth in the world's top copper consumer, though risk appetite in the wider markets and oversold conditions kept losses in check. Copper, down nearly 15 percent this year, fell on Friday after strong U.S. jobs data bolstered concerns that the Federal Reserve could start winding down its stimulus programme as early as September.

• U.S. venture capital funding in Q2 down 54 pct on previous year. U.S. venture capital firms raised $2.9 billion in the second quarter of 2013, down 54 percent on the same period last year, Thomson Reuters and National Venture Capital Association data showed on Tuesday. This is the lowest quarterly figure for U.S. venture capital fundraising since the third quarter of 2011. During the second quarter of 2013, the top five U.S. venture capital funds accounted for 55 percent of total fundraising. 

• IMF says Brazil should beware inflation, not ease monetary policy. Brazil's central bank ought not ease monetary policy any further because inflation is already too high, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday. "(Brazil's) inflation is currently above the bend. At this point, to use additional monetary stimulus would in our view be wrong," Thomas Helbling, the IMF's chief for its World Economic Studies division, told a news conference.