Tim Geithner will probably be tossed out of the Obama administration following the midterm elections.

Rather than announce massive bond purchases with a finite end, as they did in 2009 to shock the U.S. financial system back to life, Fed officials are weighing a more open-ended, smaller-scale program that they could adjust as the recovery unfolds.

A consistent question since the financial crisis in 2008 is why has the federal government not prosecuted any senior executives for their roles in the collapse of firms like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns or the risky investments that led to bailouts of onetime financial giants like the American International Group, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. How can companies worth billions of dollars just a few months earlier suddenly collapse in 2008 without someone being held responsible?

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- An index of stocks in Asia outside of Japan may be set to “break down” as the gauge nears the end of a rebound from a May low, said CIMB Investment Bank Bhd.

The rally over the past four months has helped the measure rally above the resistance trend line, a pattern known as a “throw over” in Elliott Wave Principle, CIMB analysts Nigel Foo and Kong Seh Siang said. This may suggest that the wedge is on its final wave, according to the analysts.

PARWAN, Afghanistan — The top American commander in Afghanistan said Monday that high-level Taliban leaders had reached out to senior Afghan government officials in the context of starting reconciliation discussions that could pave the way to end the fighting in Afghanistan.

(Reuters) - A German firm that installs and manages gold vending machines aims to introduce them into the United States this year as it expands rapidly to take advantage of demand for bullion in times of economic uncertainty.

China’s panda dies in Japan during sperm collection

Could not have come at a better time to add salt to the wound for the Sino-Japan relations, which was already “cracked” over the arrest of the Chinese fishing boat captain after the collision incident in waters near the territorial disputed Diaoyutai Islands.  This time, China’s national treasure, giant panda died in Japan.

Iran is not happy with the new director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano. The head of Tehran's own nuclear body, Ali Akbar Salehi, accuses Amano in a SPIEGEL interview of being prejudiced against his country and warns that his course could lead to a global "catastrophe." The head of Tehran's own nuclear body, Ali Akbar Salehi, in a SPIEGEL interview Amano accuses of being prejudiced against his country and warns that his course could lead to a global "catastrophe."

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's rejuvenated opposition celebrated on Monday after reducing President Hugo Chavez's majority in parliament and set their sights on defeating him at the next presidential election in 2012.

"With a high at $1,301 (for COMEX gold), you can hardly say it's bearish. But, there may be a short-term correction," said Rick Bensignor, chief market strategist at Execution Noble Llc in New York.

Bensignor and other analysts saw short-term corrective selling on the horizon, identifying downside targets ranging from $1,246 to $1,268 per ounce.

Cuts may follow in 4Q

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/4350996/morgan-stanley-starts-hiring-freeze-/

The owner of the Segway scooter company, who acquired it from inventor Dean Kamen in December 2009, has died of what appears to be an incident of riding a Segway scooter off a cliff on his British estate.

NYSE Group Inc. Issues Short Interest Report

Bárðarbunga is a powerful stratovolcano in Iceland and is located under the ice cap of Vatnajökull glacier. With a massive high of 6591 feet above sea level that makes it the highest mountain in Iceland it also makes for some powerful volanic activity when it erupts.

Iceland's Bárðarbunga volcano is said to erupt every 250-600 years if scientists are correct. What many dont know is that the most powerful volcano eruption on earth happened at Bárðarbunga some time ago.

For those that believe in evolution it could be around 8000 years ago but for those that believe in creation it could be around 3000 years ago, no one knows exactly when but the last time Bárðarbunga erupted it caused lava to cover an area of 950 square kilometers.

It is believed that Bárðarbunga will erupt sometime in the near future.

The rating agencies are now in the process of cutting their outlook — Moody’s did so on 120 companies this quarter compared with only 40 upgrades (according to Bloomberg). Last quarter, S&P cut the outlook for 76 issuers and raised them for 51.

Led by declines in production- and employment-related indicators, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index decreased to –0.53 in August from –0.11 in July.

Japan export growth slowed for the sixth straight month in August, underscoring Japan's recent moves to weaken the yen, and prompting speculation that the BOJ will ease already ultra-loose monetary policy next week. Exports rose 15.8% Y/Y, short of the 19% gain economists expected, and well below 2010's peak of 45.3% in February. Japan's GDP growth fell to just 0.4% in Q2 following a 4.4% rise in Q1

Euro area growth slows, rocky waters ahead. The Conference Board's leading indicator for the euro area rose another 0.4% in August to 112.5 (2004 = 100), weaker than July's 0.8% increase and June's 0.5% increase. "The initial impetus of the recovery has been fading and the broad based cooling down of leading indicators is a reminder of the fragility of the recovery," the report said, predicting greater volatility in 2011 as governments phase in deficit reduction measures. The euro area LEI is now 17.8% above its March 2009 trough.

QE 2.0 to arrive before year-end - economists. The Fed will boost its balance sheet by half a trillion dollars over the next half year, and keep it inflated for up to a year, economists say. In a new survey crafted to gauge sentiment on the Fed's QE policies, 70% of the respondents believed the Fed will restart quantitative easing; of those 80% think it will happen before year-end. "The trigger for the resumption of quantitative easing late this year will be an increase in unemployment back into double-digits," Moody's Mark Zandi said.

Wall Street Journal put together some interesting details about what happened between France and Germany ahead of the Greek bailout, in its investigation about the ‘secret’ task force the eurozone member states set up after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008. The task force was set up to prevent a default in the eurozone.  The article concludes that“Deep differences on economic policy between Europe's frugal north and laxer south, between Germany and France, and between national governments and central EU institutions hindered an effective early response to the crisis. Only when faced with calamity—the collapse of the euro zone—did leaders put aside their differences and reach a compromise.”

The FT reminds readers that we are facing another big rollover week with €225bn in a 3 to 12 month auctions coming due for repayment this week. It is hard to predict what will happen. The giant €442bn rollover in the summer went surprisingly smoothly, but there is a possibility that a high rollover rate might push up market interest rates.

Belgian borrowing costs relative to those of Germany are rising at the fastest rate in the euro area since talks between the regional parties to built a government broke down early September, reports Bloomberg, Belgium is without government for more than three months now. Investors are demanding now a yield premium of 90bp for 10y bonds, 41% higher than early September compared to only 21% for Ireland over the same period.

The Council on Foreign Relations have put together a short presentation, 4 slides, on the weakness of the U.S. recovery.

One standard way of assessing the underlying valuation of housing is to compare it with income. When homes are soaring in value, they rise above the historical average of 4 times median household income. When houses fall in value, they dip to 3.5 times median household income.

Ned Davis Research and CNBC recently published a chart of this ratio, housing prices to median household income.

Equity income funds inflow has totaled $3.8 billion [year-to-date] despite investors having withdrawn $14.4 billion from US equity mutual funds during the same period. If ETFs are included, more than $6 billion has moved into equity income funds in 2010. Yield is a scarce commodity with 10-year Treasuries at 2.6%. High profile dividend raises this month from [Limited Brands, McDonald's, Microsoft, Philip Morris International, and YUM Brands] as well as [Cisco's] initiation announcement show firms responding to investor demand

Presently, our valuations measures suggest clear overvaluation (our estimated 10-year total return for the S&P 500, based on a variety of models including the operating earnings model presented a few weeks ago, is only about 5%-5.4% annually), market action is strenuously overbought, market internals are relatively positive, but economic pressures are still negative, and sentiment is once again bullish enough to define an "overvalued, overbought, overbullish" condition.

For days, Gmail has been displaying scary red banners above certain users' inboxes, warning "Your account was recently accessed from China." So, now you at least know if Chinese hackers are spying on your Gmail.

For days, Gmail has been displaying scary red banners above certain users' inboxes, warning "Your account was recently accessed from China." So, now you at least know if Chinese hackers are spying on your Gmail.

New homes sales remained flat month-over-month in August at 288,000 annualized units, according to a report released today by the National Association of Federal Credit Unions. Sales are scraping bottom at 28.9% less than one year ago and barely above the record low of 282,000 units in May.

A clear divide is emerging between analysts on the outlook for the investment banking sector, with some suggesting the third quarter will surprise on the upside while others downgrade their forecasts in light of worse than expected trading activity.

Deutsche Bank’s Michael Carrier yesterday slashed third quarter earnings estimates for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs by 70% and 35% respectively “due to weak capital market trends across the board in the quarter”.

The largest number of bank failures in nearly 20 years has eliminated jobs, accelerated a drought in lending and left the industry's survivors with more power to squeeze customers.

Some 279 banks have collapsed since Sept. 25, 2008, when Washington Mutual Inc. became the biggest bank failure on record. That dwarfed the 1984 demise of Continental Illinois, which had only one-seventh of WaMu's assets. The failures of the past two years shattered the pace of the prior six-year period, when only three dozen banks died.

The US government is in danger of missing its deadline of divesting all of its Citigroup shares by the year-end after a fall in stock market trading volumes prompted authorities to slow down sales in July and August.

China’s commerce ministry announced on its Web site that it would impose import tariffs on American poultry of up to 105.4 percent. It said the tariffs reflected the result of its own antidumping investigation, which looked at whether the United States was harming China’s poultry industry by exporting chicken parts for less than it cost to produce them.

As one of the most architectural productive country, China aggregates 2 billion m² of new building area every year, consuming about 40% of the world’s concrete and steel. However, on the flip side of the new building fever, there lie the rubbles and remains of other “older” buildings: people tear down four-star hotels to build five-star ones and bulldoze newly developed construction sites before they are even finished. Lots of young strong buildings are down, fulfilling their unnatural destiny in the roaring noise of blasting.

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/09/24/on-deck-next-week-auto-sales-case-shiller-gdp-data/

Ireland should seek an €80bn bailout from Europe to address our debt crisis and prevent years of stagnation, a leading economist has suggested.

Although Ireland has no immediate funding problems, it should seek up to €80bn from the European bailout fund to prevent ""a long, slow death", according to Societe Generale chief economist James Nixon last week.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's Sao Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa) is now the second largest stock in market value in the world, the stock's president Edemir Pinto said Friday.

Bovespa reached a market value of 30.4 billion reais (17.7 billion U.S. dollars) by closing time on Thursday, only after Hong Kong Stock Exchange.