U.S. stock futures drop on Europe bank woes

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — U.S. stock futures reduced their losses Thursday after the ADP private payroll survey found a 325,000 increase in jobs in December and jobless claims remained under 400,000 last week.

The U.S. economic data helped counter bearish sentiment that came on worries that Europe’s troubles may worsen.

“The labor market is improving. With respect to the S&P futures only bouncing modestly in light of the blowout ADP figure, Europe continues to trade weak and U.S. retail comps had many misses in December,” noted Miller Tabak equity strategist Peter Boockvar in emailed commentary.

Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJ2H +0.24%   were off 12 points at 12,344.

Futures for the S&P 500 SP2H +0.38%  declined 2.6 points to 1,270.40.

Those for the Nasdaq 100 ND2H +0.17%  shed 1 point to 2,327.75.

Click to Play

Europe at the brink: Imperfect union

In Part I of the documentary, "Europe at the Brink," Wall Street Journal editors and reporters discuss structural flaws in the design of the EU's economic union, the "original sin" that helped set the stage for the debt crisis of 2011.

European shares were lower, with banks leading the way.

Italy’s UniCredit SpA IT:UCG -11.12%  Wednesday offered new shares at a steep 43% discount to current prices as part of a plan to raise 7.5 billion euros ($9.7 billion) in new capital. And the Spanish government said the nation’s banking sector will need to raise around €50 billion in additional provisions to deal with property assets gone bad. Read Europe Markets.

France saw borrowing costs rise slightly at the 10-year level as it sold €8 billion of bonds in a closely watched auction.

Developments in Europe have at times overshadowed improving U.S. economic data, strategists noted.

Falling inflation pressures and a slowly improving outlook for jobs and other elements of the economy could help sustain a further rise for U.S. stocks in early 2012, said Kully Samra, branch director at Charles Schwab U.K., in a note.

“We’ve seen recession fears fade as consistently improving data have emerged, but stocks have largely ignored the positive developments in the U.S. picture as international concerns have seemingly dominated attention,” he said. That said, investors may be underestimating how much time Europe will take to get the debt crisis under control, Samra said.

“We believe a mild recession in Europe may be priced into markets at this point, as it is frequently discussed. However, extending the time to stabilize the situation may only elongate and deepen a recession in Europe, and markets may not be appreciating the risk of a longer recession in Europe and the negative implications for global growth,” he said.

Retail reports

U.S. retailers offered mixed results for holiday sales in December, with Costco Wholesale Corp. COST -1.68%  reporting U.S. sale-store sales excluding fuel climbed 6% during the month from the year-ago period. Target Corp. TGT +1.32%  , however, lowered its earnings expectations and reported revenue at stores open at least a year below analysts’ estimates.

The Institute for Supply Management’s index measuring activity outside the manufacturing sector in December is set for release at 10 a.m. Eastern. Economists expect the index to rise to 53.3% from 52% in November.

Wall Street finished mostly higher Wednesday after a round of strong auto sales data for December and signs of strong post-holiday shopping.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.34%  ended the day with a gain of 21.04 points at 12,418.42, its highest close since July 26. The S&P 500 SPX -0.20%  gained 0.24 point to finish at 1,277.30, while the Nasdaq Composite Index COMP +0.17%  shed 0.4 point to settle at 2,648.36.

Kate Gibson is a reporter for MarketWatch, based in New York. William L. Watts is a reporter for MarketWatch in Frankfurt.

European stocks drop sharply on bank fears

By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Fresh fears about the health of European banks prompted steep declines Thursday for stock markets across the Continent, with Italy and Spain among the worst hit.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index XX:SXXP +0.06%  dropped 0.9% to end at 247.39.

Banks posted especially steep losses, with the Stoxx 600 Banks index XX:SX7P -0.82%  falling 3.2% to 130.09.

A number of developments contributed to the declines that started Wednesday after Italy’s UniCredit SpA IT:UCG -11.12%  priced a share sale at a 43% discount. Shares of UniCredit slumped 17.3% on Thursday after sinking nearly 15% in the previous session.

Italy’s FTSE MIB index XX:FTSEMIB -0.82%  tumbled 3.7% to 14,767.22, led lower by UniCredit. Other Italian banks also dropped, with Intesa Sanpaolo SpA IT:ISP -4.37%  trading down 7.3% and Banco Popolare IT:BP -2.61%  shedding 10.3%.

“The appetite for buying banks in the peripheral area remains very low,” said Steen Jakobsen, chief economist at Saxo Bank. “The market place is not a buyer of risk. The only buyer of risk is the European Central Bank.”

He added: “We have a system that is clogged up in terms of its [transmission] of credit,” at a time when both European banks and governments need to raise capital.

Click to Play

Europe at the brink: Imperfect union

Wall Street Journal editors and reporters discuss structural flaws in the design of the EU's economic union, the "original sin" that helped set the stage for the debt crisis of 2011.

Concerns also escalated about Spanish banks after Spain’s economy minister told the Financial Times that they will have to set aside as much as 50 billion euros ($65 billion), which amounts to 4% of Spain’s gross domestic product, in extra provisions on bad property assets.

Spain’s IBEX 35 index XX:IBEX -0.49%  dropped 2.9% to 8,329.60, with Banco Santander SA ES:SAN -1.43%   STD -2.94%  down 4.5% and BBVA SA BBVA -2.62%   ES:BBVA -1.13%  down 5%.

French and German banks also came under pressure, with Societe Generale SA FR:GLE -3.20%  and BNP Paribas SA FR:BNP -1.88%  both shedding 5.4% in Paris and Deutsche Bank AG DE:DBK -5.10%  declining 5.6% in Frankfurt.

The loss for SocGen weighed on the CAC 40 index FR:PX1 -0.24%  , which dropped 1.5% to 3,144.91. Investors digested the results of a French government bond auction that saw a rise in 10-year yields, but fairly respectable demand from investors. Bond auctions are closely watched as the markets try to gauge the ability of euro-zone nations, including France, Spain and Italy, to fund themselves. Concerns remain about France’s ability to retain its prized triple-A credit rating.

In Germany, the DAX 30 index DX:DAX -0.62%  posted relatively modest losses compared to other European markets, falling 0.3% to 6,095.99 after data showed a drop in German retail sales in November. Deutsche Bank was the biggest loser in the DAX, followed by Commerzbank AG DE:CBK -0.65% , which dropped 4.5%.

Shares of HeidelbergCement AG DE:HEI +0.18%  slipped 2.8% after Credit Suisse downgraded its rating to underperform from outperform. And in London, shares of CRH PLC UK:CRH -2.09%  declined 3.4% after the building-materials firm was downgraded to underperform from neutral by Credit Suisse, which also lowered its rating on the building-materials sector to marketweight from overweight, saying valuations remain unjustifiably high.

CRH was one of the biggest losers in the U.K.’s FTSE 100 index UK:UKX +0.45% , which fell 0.8% to 5,624.26.

On the positive side, shares of Petrofac Ltd. UK:PFC +3.35%  rose 1.9% after the oilfield-services firm announced a cooperation agreement with Schlumberger Ltd. SLB -0.46% .

Another top gainer in the FTSE 100 was Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. UK:ENRC +1.37% , up 4.6%. The company said Thursday that it has agreed with First Quantum Minerals Ltd. UK:FQM +0.95%  to settle all claims relating to operations in Congo.

In other trading, shares of Nokia Corp. NOK -2.41%   FI:NOK1V +7.05%  rallied 7.1% in Helsinki after Credit Suisse upgraded the handset maker to outperform from underperform, saying Nokia’s “focus on Windows will allow for the company to drive a recovery in 2012.”

Separately, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported that Nokia’s board plans to propose Risto Siilasmaa as the firm’s new chairman. A Nokia spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

Polya Lesova is chief of MarketWatch’s London bureau.

Fubar and Rebar of the Spine and Mind.

Dog Poet Transmitting.......

May your noses always be cold and wet.......

For the last week I've seen little if any news. I've been too busy being the news, at least inside my own head, where it's all been news to me; had a bone rattling Kundalini uprising, attended by a great deal of jet lag, weltschmertz and things unsaid, given space constraints and the lack of a need for the usual digressions. As is typical, all sorts of people I've never spoken to before want to get in touch with me and I have not been available for due to not being available, computer screw-ups and whatever it is they put in the water around here.

So... for a brief period this morning I went around to the headlines, the newsvines and the alternative and mainstream half truths and deceptions and rewinds; the re-fried beans and warmed over hash that is the result of forces bringing in the trash instead of taking it out; people and objects, ideas and fantasies in the process of being taken out. There's lots of confusion, delusion and unnecessary gun-play and saber rustling and the usual lies about who won an election or came out on top at the convention as the dark goblins preying on us, make the decision about who's going to lead us into perdition, or on to the conveyor belt, where those of us, still terminally asleep, can be packed into cans for the sustenance of cannibal nation, shortly to appear in the windshield instead of the rear view mirror, depending on what direction you are driving in.

What I can say is that the intensity has definitely ratcheted up from what I was noticing, since the last time I was noticing anything, except the news inside my head. Extra! Extra! Read all about it. Madness and slouching beasts are afoot and they are approaching the cities and citadels of our former copacetics. We are not copacetic now from what I can tell as it all gets shot to hell by senators and presidents and the usual assholes in residence, all under the financial heel of the Nosferatu Ashke-Nazis who seem to have no problem managing Cabin Boy Nation on it's pillow-biting journey of unfortunate self discovery. They can steal your fortunes, your futures, your progeny and morph out your attention, while still running the world's drug industries, the sex slave trade, the organ harvesting and the warmongering as they hyper-drive, into the twisted and tormenting defense of the lands they stole from the people they are genociding, while continuing pell mell in operating their fabrication nation as the sovereign crime country, for which purpose it was created; like it ever had anything to do with God or religion in the first place, unless your god is the devil and your religion is bloodstained currency sailing like a hovercraft kind of black magic prayer rugs.

Listen up people! Yeah I know you're watching Fox News and singing the blues about all those missing cheeseburgers and kneeknockers you haven't gotten around to yet and can't stop thinking about because except for all the other useless shit you are chasing after there isn't anything else that you do think about or rub your crotch in disrespect of. No, you won't be listening to me but... you'd better do something about these flesh eating psychopaths before you see your name up there in lights on the menu as The Daily Special. If you wonder where your children are, they're in the appetizer section unless they're on the dessert menu; if the age is right and they're cute enough. If you don't think this is a living breathing reality, you truly are a fool who's going to be made wise by persisting in their folly. When you get an apple stuffed into your mouth and see yourself brought in on a trolley. On your way to that moment you did all the right things to get yourself transformed into what usually shows up that way. What do you know? It does taste like pork and... you thought they didn't eat that. Well I hate to be the one to tell you but... right, I keep forgetting, you're not listening to me. So be it.

Onward it marches, the destinies of fools and gods, the destinies of the dependent and independent, the destinies of the bound and free as well as the destinies of the binders and the liberators. One of them is in short supply but that's the way it is in times of darkness. There are times of darkness and creatures of darkness. There are invisible creatures of darkness and visible creatures of darkness and the latter are your leaders and the ones who manipulate them and that all goes back to the source of darkness and that is located in the human heart and mind; at least the doorway in is located there; “seal the door where evil dwells”.

One might well ask how it is that the darkness and the confusion of the times can be so proliferative, pervasive and ubiquitous. How did it get all over the place so quickly? Well, there are vibrational regularities to periods of time. The car and the telephone and probably a whole lot of other things were all being invented at the same time. We may only know the single name that got picked out to be thought responsible for them but it you look a little deeper into the history of those moments, you find that similar things were happening all over the place. A certain degree of collective depravity, cruelty and relative indifference to human suffering was very present in ancient Rome. Certain personality types kept showing up. Everybody had to deal with it or they left town. Some would say that Rome fell because it became over-extended like modern America and some will tell you that it was the lead they lined the aqueducts and delivery systems with that brought about the insanity and all those big houses without children and the kind of things you find out if you read latter day philosophers of the time. Everybody had an answer or a theory, just like they do now.

When a culture is in freefall, like America and other parts of The West, it is always a combination of a few simple things and the negative expression of these things shows up in every related environment, which is why, all over America, law enforcement is out of control. The darkness comes down, or up from a certain location and presents itself into the minds of those most disposed to its whims and pleasures. The people thought to be in high places that inhabit the low places and who then, through the illusion of power and prominence, influence so many lesser minds, who then act out upon their fellows. It's all part of the movie. In times of darkness certain kinds of 'shit happens'. It happens in order to show the deceived, deluded and all the rest what happens when we give up our own sovereignty, out of fear and appetite. This kind of thing operates like an epidemic and it isn't too long after that when real epidemics follow.

The biggest problem in times of darkness, is believing the darkness is everywhere and ten times too powerful to compute or arrest. Actually, the darkness has no literal or real being, except what is given to it by the one considering or contemplating it. If the darkness is collecting on the outside then it can be assumed with authority that the light is concentrating on the inside in various places and quite possibly outside as well but it's not reported on because the darkness, which controls the avenues of public information, doesn't want these things to be known. If the darkness is going to go down then it damn well intends on taking the rest of us with it and that is why it looks that way.

You can hear the drums and the hoofbeats pounding on the earth as Shake, Rattle and Awe approach. You can hear the thunder of imaginary darkness, taking the final footsteps to convince you that all is lost and you have to crawl into the hole that it is in. That's why one of the biggest liars and manipulators of present history wants you to go see War Horse; wants you to believe that slavery happened differently than it did and that the people who did it are actually the heroes that ended it; that certain people behaved differently than they did and that history happened different than it did and that certain things happened that NEVER HAPPENED and that there are now more survivors, far more, than there was when they first started counting. Any fool can check the world census and find out what could or could not be so.

Who suffers the most from a lie? It would be the one who believes it. The one telling it is already suffering from something else. How useful can any lie be if it compromises your sight line and blinds you to what is before you? How efficient and helpful can any lie be unless you are the one telling it? There's no future for those who believe in lies. At least the liar can make off with a certain amount of profit in one way or another, for however long that lasts, until they have to return as the present victim of their former actions or, far worse, depending on the scale of injuries delivered. These miscreants have no clue as to the further regions to which they are bound.

Pay careful attention. It is on your doorstep. It can go a lot of ways from here. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then you had better have dependable and righteous heroes. Otherwise you can take this post and roll it up and stick it up your ass and set it on fire; save yourself the trouble of having your entire ass and everything connected to it set on fire further 'down' the road. We shall see.

End Transmission.......