Connie Madon
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This is bizarre at best but its true. In Latvia there lives a man named Viktor Mirosiichenko who heads a company called Kontora Loan Company. Who is this man and what is so unusual about him? He will make a loan to you if you sign an "agreement" and pledge "your immortal soul" as collateral.

Unlike the stock market, the bond market thrives on "bad" news. Why is this? The main reason is the money trail. Investors are quick to move their money from stocks into bonds when something bad happens.

Yesterday we had plenty of bad news. The U.S. job market lost 467,000 jobs, a 26-year high. Now to add fuel to the fire, wages are dropping due to layoffs and shortened work weeks (WSJ subscription required). Fewer people are working, which means less money that consumers have to spend. That signals a slower economy.

Remember the heyday of the housing boom when investors would "flip" properties? Speculators would put a down payment on a property, usually a new construction, and sell it before it was completed with a fat profit. But the "flippers" got bagged when the price of real estate started dropping. Many just walked away from their deposits and left developers holding the bag.

Why is this idea of flipping real estate important now? Well, it seems that private equity investors buying troubled banks will be prohibited from "flipping" the bank for at least three years. In addition, regulators are requiring purchasers to maintain a capital ratio of 15%, three times the ratio required of other banks.

The unemployment numbers just came out and showed that the U.S. economy lost 467,000 jobs last month. That was the trigger for the oil traders. Within a few minutes oil dropped $2.02 per barrel to $67.19 at 9:07 EDT.

Adding fuel to the decline was the report that gasoline stockpiles rose by 2.9 million barrels, but crude dropped 3.7 million barrels.

Bad news! Another 467,000 jobs were lost according to the latest report. This is much worse that last month's loss of 322,000, and brings into question whether the stimulus programs are working to jump-start the economy. Obviously they are not doing the job. The unemployment rate rose to 9.5% from 9.4%.

Analysts had expected a much better report. Alan Ruskin of RBS Greenwich Capital said: "if you were betting on the U.S. driving a vigorous recovery, think again. ... The unemployment report can largely be taken at face value, and the face value story is a labor market that is not improving nearly as rapidly as the May data suggested."

Is there an index that measures millionaires' sentiment and whether they are optimistic or pessimistic? The answer is yes. It is called the Spectrem Millionaire Investor Index.

The next question naturally is: "So what are the millionaires thinking about the economy?" The news is not good. The index fell 18 points to a -20 in June, a record decline since the index was created in 2004. Plus the index fell 17 points in May. A range of -11 to -30 indicates a slightly bearish sentiment. It's likely that millionaires underwent a reality check after a bout of over optimism in May.

Why is chicken causing a furor between the US and China? It seems that there is a long standing feud over chicken imports to the US. According to Etter and Power, in 2006 the USDA issued a rule that permitted China to export cooked poultry products to the US as long as the raw poultry meat originated in the US. A bruhaha erupted, and lawmakers inserted a provision in the fiscal 2008 spending bill that prohibited processed chicken from being imported into the US.

Now, in retaliation, China is expected to ban imports of US chicken, a move that would cost US chicken exporters $370 million dollars over the next six months.

Why did this happen? Berry and Rees reported that today the Agriculture Department released its report on corn plantings which forecast 87.035 million acres up from 85.982 million acres planted in 2008. More acres mean more corn and more corn means lower prices.

Are mortgage rates affecting U.S. mortgage applications? The short answer most likely is yes. Mortgage applications tumbled to a 7 month low, with refinancing loans down 30%, according to Reuters. This is clearly not a good sign for the housing market.

Kenneth Rosen from the University of California says that mortgage rates are just one factor causing the drop. He adds that high unemployment, concerns for job security, and problems with buyers being unable to sell their existing homes are also affecting the market.

Are financial stocks a buy now? Jeffrey Palma, a strategist for UBS says yes. He is recommending a modest "overweight" for this sector. He goes on to say that financials had the biggest gains among 10 industry groups in the MSCI World Index in the second quarter.

Let's be clear here. Mr. Palma is referring to the second quarter. The second quarter is done, finished. The real question is whether or not, going forward, the rally will continue.

Why did China raise its gasoline and diesel prices? Beijing has a pricing policy that uses a 22-day moving average of crude oil. With the price of crude oil trading at around $71 per barrel, China felt it necessary to raise the price of gasoline and diesel fuel 9% and 10%, respectively. This will raise the price of a gallon of gasoline to $3.00 per gallon, compared with the U.S. price of $2.66 a week ago, according to Reuters news service.

With economies around the world gaining ground this quarter, it follows that demand for crude oil is also increasing. So far we've seen a doubling of oil prices since last February. The main concern is, given the pace of recovery, is there a point where demand for crude oil and gasoline will taper off. If so, we may be looking at an intermediate top in oil prices. However, if world economies continue to improve, crude oil could move to $75 to $80 per barrel.

How does the consumer feel about the economy? In a word, lousy. The Conference Board, an industry group, reported that consumer confidence dropped to 49.3 in June, from a reading of 54.8 in May. Economists had expected it to be 55.

Here's another piece of bad news. Only 17.4% of consumers felt that more jobs would appear in the coming months, also down from 19.3% in May.

Who is in charge of regulating the wheat futures market? That agency is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which oversees trading in the futures markets. One area of regulation is the number of open contracts any one person can have at any given time. The limit is 6,500 contracts.

So then what caused the price of wheat to go wild last year? It seems that the CFTC was complicit in that they gave exemptions for traders to go beyond the 6,500 limit. One trader was allowed to hold 53,000 contracts. Then to make matters worse, six traders ganged up and held 130,000 contracts. According to Bill Tomson, the value of these investments jumped "from an estimated $15 billion dollars in 2003 to around $200 billion by mid 2008.

We should note that there are two kinds of popular pension plans. First we have the "defined benefit" (DB) plan where the benefit on retirement is determined by a set formula, rather than depending on investment returns. The second type is the "defined contribution" plan. Here contributions are paid into an individual account by each member. This money is then invested in stocks, bonds, etc. Monies can be contributed by both employers and employees. This type of plan is more vulnerable because it is subject the the ups and downs of the market.

Listen to what Richard Parkus of Deutsche Bank has to say about commercial real estate. He said that "We are not only not approaching stability, we are at a period of maximum deterioration."

We have often said that after the collapse of residential real estate in the last year, the next shoe to drop would be the commercial market. What is being wrung out of the home market is now beginning to be felt big time in commercial real estate. Landlords are putting together all kinds of packages, including free rent and other perks, and still prices are falling. It is believed that values are down a whopping 50% from their peak in 2007.