Global Economic Collapse Is Now In Progress: U.S. GDP Revised Lower, FedEx, Capterpillar Reports Raise Red Flags, Europe May Have Just Run Out Its Luck, InvestmentNews Warns Bond Crash Dead Ahead, And Ben Bernanke States Cyprus Bank Levy Is Possible Here In The US!

No Surprises From FOMC – Statement Redline Comparison

• *FED SEES ECONOMY RETURNING TO MODERATE GROWTH AFTER Q4 PAUSE
• *FED CONTINUES TO SEE DOWNSIDE RISKS TO ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
• *FED MAINTAINS $85 BILLION MONTHLY PACE OF BOND BUYING
• *FED SAYS FISCAL POLICY HAS BECOME SOMEWHAT MORE RESTRICTIVE

Europe Is A Complete Disaster, And Its Luck May Have Just Run Out

What just happened in Cyprus has always been a risk.
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Against the backdrop of bad theory and bad policies, Europe has engaged in a series of ad hoc rescues and bailouts that tamp down flareups where they occur.
And heretofore Europe has actually gotten lucky. All the big votes have gone Europe’s way.
Remember all those Greek austerity votes? They always passed by the skin of their teeth.
Remember the German Supreme Court decision on the legality of the bailouts? It went Europe’s way.
Remember when Slovenia was the center of attention, because it came close to not approving the expanded bailout plan? Slovenia eventually played ball.
And then of course the public elections always turned out okay. In Greece last summer, the conservative New Democracy party narrowly edged out the leftist SYRIZA party. Had SYRIZA won, it would have set up an epic clash, as SYRIZA was not going to go along with the austerity that was demanded by the outside.
It looks like Europe’s luck is running out.
In Italy last month, the election ended inconclusively. The center-left coalition failed to get enough votes (it seems) to form a government, and there might need to be new elections.
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FedEx, Capterpillar reports raise red flags

Investors got a double-whammy Wednesday from FedEx and Caterpillar, underscoring why profit growth expectations for S&P 500 companies have been coming down ahead of April’s parade of first-quarter earnings reports.
FedEx /quotes/zigman/254280/quotes/nls/fdx FDX -6.87% and Caterpillar /quotes/zigman/221644/quotes/nls/cat CAT -1.51% both issued disappointing business updates, sending their shares lower as the broader U.S. stock market edged higher. The two, long considered proxies for economic demand world-wide, have been restructuring their businesses to adapt to current conditions.
Global Trade Bellwether FedEx Cuts Outlook, CapEx Forecast, Says May Ground Aircraft

DEUTSCHE BANK: Here’s Why The ECB May Not Rescue Cyprus

It’s probably incentivized to do the opposite.
Following the Cypriot parliament’s total rejection of the controversial bank bailout deal reached by EU finance ministers over the weekend, the ECB released a statement saying that it would provide liquidity to Cyprus ”within the existing rules.”

Emergency Liquidity Assistance is the ECB’s last recourse for euro zone banks that find themselves unable to raise funding in the open market through bond issuance.
However, as several pointed out following the statement, Cypriot banks probably don’t even qualify for ELA, which means the ECB may have really been saying something more along the lines of “don’t count on it.”
Deutsche Bank economist Gilles Moec explains in a note to clients.
“The provision of ELA funding is normally conditional on the receiving banks remaining intrinsically solvent,” says Moec. “With the prospect of a bank run starting immediately after the expiry of the bank holiday, this condition hardly holds.”
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Here’s Where The Ugly Consequences Of Easy Monetary Policy Will First Appear

Here’s the chart Minack included demonstrating this potential problem.

Morgan Stanley

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FED: THE UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS GOING TO BE BETTER THAN WE THOUGHT

But GDP will be lower.
However, they also modestly revised lower their expectations for GDP.
Here’s a round up:

• Unemployment rate  2013: 7.3-7.5 percent, down from 7.4-7.7 percent 2014: 6.7-7.0 percent, down from 6.8-7.3 percent 2015: 6.0-6.5 percent, down from 6.0-6.6 percent
• GDP 2013: 2.3-2.8 percent, down from 2.3-3.0 percent 2014: 2.9-3.4 percent, down from 3.0-3.5 percent 2015: 2.9-3.7 percent, down from 3.0-3.7 percent

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BERNANKE STATES CYPRUS STYLE DEPOSITOR HAIRCUTS POSSIBLE IN US IF EVENTS IN EUROPE BECOME CONTAGIOUS!

*BREAKING*
At this afternoon’s FOMC Press Conference, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke just confirmed that Cyprus style depositor haircut wealth confiscation is possible here in the US “if the Cyprus event or another event in Europe were to become contagious and the people lose confidence in the US dollar”.
And there you have it.  The entire Cyprus fiasco is now officially on the table when the financial crisis escalates here in the US!! GOT PHYZZ??

At 3:18 PM EST Bernanke was asked: Would a seizure happen to US depositors as in Cyprus, if the economy gets worse?
Beranke’s response: Only if the Cyprus event or another event in Europe were to become contagious and the people lose confidence in the US dollar.

Surprising post suggests the U.S. dollar is no longer the best “safe haven” currency

Here is something that I’ve found myself getting into friendly arguments about lately. When money is scared and wants to come out of risk assets, what is the safest place? Where do they go? The easy answers are obviously the U.S. Dollar and U.S. Government bonds right? Some people might say gold. But the math says otherwise. If you look at just the numbers, the winner is by far, the Japanese Yen.
And I don’t know why that is the case. I get asked, “why”, all the time. Not really too worried about the answer. We’ll let the math do the work and answer the more important question of, “what?”
So when you look at negative correlations with U.S. Equities, the U.S. Dollar Index is actually a plus-0.58 for the month and plus-0.68 for the quarter. Sure it’s at -0.52 for the year, but nowhere near as high as what you might expect the safest haven to be.
Treasury bonds show a nice negative correlation, but again, surprisingly low coming in at just -0.74 for the month. While -0.91 for the quarter is nice and high, the -0.55 correlation with S&Ps for the year doesn’t convince me.
Gold has a zero correlation for the month, -0.68 for the quarter, and actually a positive 0.24 for the year. So gold isn’t the answer either.
Which brings me to the Japanese Yen…

Here’s How Fast The Economy Is Deteriorating In Britain!!! INEVITABLE’ U.K.  RATING MOVES BY FITCH, S&P!

Business Insider‏@businessinsider1 h Here’s How Fast The  Economy Is Deteriorating In Britain
UK Chancellor George  Osborne is unveiling the government’s budget.
As part of that, the government is also  revealing various economic assumptions for growth, employment, borrowing, and so  forth.
As you should know by now, things are deteriorating in the UK economy, which  has caused the pound to tank.
The remarkable part is the speed.
Back in December, growth for the country was expected to be 1.2%.
Today, just a few months later? Just 0.6%. Oof.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-fast-the-economy-is-deteriorating-in-britain-2013-3#ixzz2O6buLiIM
zerohedge‏@zerohedge34 min UK Government will provide an equity  loan worth up to 20% of the value of new build home worth up to £600,000 –  BBC
Bloomberg TV ‏@BloombergTV43 min BREAKING: U.K. chancellor to  increase country’s bank levy rate to 0.142%
Cyprus rushes to find Plan B to avoid bankruptcy
Britain’s Osborne turns to Bank of England to help growth

Which index is telling “Telling the Truth???”

from kimblechartingsolutions:

CLICK ON CHART TO ENLARGE
Anyone old enough to remember the game show “To Tell the Truth?”  Three people would to tell a story and only one was telling the truth. So who is telling the truth in the chart above?
Nasdaq Composite index is facing a 30-year Fibonacci level and the top of a 10-year channel, which could be break this resistance at any time.
The NDX 100 index is at its 50% Fib level of the dot.com crash and could be forming a bearish head & shoulders topping pattern.
Who is telling the truth?  The Nasdaq Composite pattern is so tight (Fib level/Channel resistance/bottom of a rising wedge) that I suspect we will know which index is telling the truth in the very near future.  With such a long-term situation at hand, I suspect the outcome will be very important!!!