World stocks slid on Wednesday after a mixed report on U.S. durable goods orders reignited doubts about economic recovery while oil prices fell on news of rising U.S. crude stockpiles.

The U.S. dollar gained, retracing the week’s losses, as the durables goods report for July eroded risk appetite and prompted investors to seek shelter in the safe-haven greenback.

Orders for long-lasting manufactured goods registered the biggest advance since July 2007, but excluding transportation goods, orders for durables were slightly below expectations.

Slippage among global stocks that climbed to 10-month highs this week boosted money flows into less risky assets, such as European government bonds, which also gained from some modest month-end buying, traders said.

Economic data in Europe showed further signs of recovery, as did a report showing U.S. new home sales jumped in July to their fastest pace in 10 months.

But a key measure of U.S. business demand — nondefense capital goods, excluding

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Economic Development Minister Elvira Nabiullina has said that Russia could enter the World Trade Organization by the end of the year, with support from the EU Trade Commissioner.  The Kremlin is hoping for cooperation with the Obama administration to secure its entry.  Could Sberbank be planning to sell its Opel stake?  The bank and Magna will extend a €500 million loan to the newly acquired car manufacturer.  Wal-Mart apparently has ambitious plans for the Russian retail market.  Victor Vekselberg has said the U.S. and European government's acquisitions of shares in large banks are politicizing the financial markets.  President Medvedev has warned against over-optimistic financial forecasts and argues that what is more important is 'how we will go out of the crisis'.  He will give a talk at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum under the ...

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /span style="font-family:arial;font-size:78%;"/spana href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s1600-h/ecb+one.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334654802370875058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 399px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SgiAR06lzrI/AAAAAAAAN1E/-NbHseEOV1Q/s400/ecb+one.png" border="0" //abr /br /blockquote“The 60 billion euros they announced is peanuts for an economy the size of the euro zone,” economics professor and former Bank of England policy maker Willem Buiter said at a conference in Dublin yesterday. “I expect they will announce more or that the recession in the euro zone will be longer and deeper than would otherwise be necessary. They have a record of being somewhat behind the curve.” /blockquoteblockquoteEuropean car sales dropped 12 percent in April.... Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s registrations dropped by almost one-third to 55,633 even as the German market expanded 19 percent, helped by the government’s 2,500 euro ($3,400) sales bonus .........Spain extended its auto-sales slump with a 46 percent plunge in registrations, the largest among the continent’s ...

Wall St slides on bank jitters, earnings outlook caution… US dollar rallies broadly as equities worldwide tumble… Government debt shines on banking worries flare up… Oil drops over 8 pct on economic outlook, dollar rise

Oil prices and stocks around the world tumbled on Monday after a jump in troubled loans at Bank of America and renewed signs of economic weakness cooled investors’ optimism the worst of a global slowdown was over.

The U.S dollar rallied broadly to trade at one-month highs as the slide in worldwide equity markets boosted safe-haven demand for the greenback, U.S. and European government debt and gold.

Bank of America stock shed 17 percent after reporting its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co helped to more than double first-quarter profit, but credit quality deteriorated sharply, hurt by a flagging economy and growing unemployment.

Also weighing on sentiment was a key gauge of

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“Have you ever heard of bullionvault.com?” my mother asked in an e-mail last week from London.

Bullion Vault is a British company that buys and sells gold over the Internet. It’s a popular service with people who want to own gold bullion but don’t want the hassle of gold ownership.

Later, my mother told me she’d been digging through the small print on Bullion Vault’s website. She was thinking about opening an account.

It seems the European banking system is about to collapse. An article in the Daily Telegraph claims European banks may have to write down $25 trillion in losses. Compare this to the problems in America… Even “Dr. Doom” – NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini – says the most American banks will have to write off is $1.8 trillion.

In other words, the problems faced by American banks are nothing but …

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /br /Wolfgan Munchau a href=”http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c94ac804-fb62-11dd-bcad-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1″was complaining only last weekend/a about the extraordinary narrow-mindedness of Europe’s economic and political leadership in the face of the current financial and economic crisis, from Ireland in the West to Hungary in the East, and from Greece in the South to Sweden in the North. But more than narrow mindedness what we are faced with is innocence and inability to react, and frankly I am not sure which is worst. I say “innocence” because it is by now abundantly clear that they simply haven’t yet grasped the severity of the problems we face (in countries like Spain, or even Germany itself, let alone in the East), and I say inability to react, since they are always and forever moving too little and too late. The initial response to the banking crisis last October was one example (where we saw a …

MSCI world equity index down 0.85 pct at 212.56… Rally after UK bank rescue package evaporates… S&P ratings downgrade on Spain hits euro

World stocks fell on Monday as optimism after Britain’s multi-billion rescue plan gave way to concerns about the banking sector after Royal Bank of Scotland reported the biggest ever loss in UK corporate history.

The euro tumbled after Standard & Poor’s cut Spain’s credit rating, following its downgrade of Greece last week. Oil fell 6 percent below $35 a barrel, hit by worries about weakening energy demand in a slowing economy.

Britain will allow banks to insure against steep losses and guarantee their debt to stop the credit crunch pushing the economy into a deep slump. The plan raises the government’s stake in RBS, which said it lost over 20 billion pounds last year, sending shares down nearly 70 percent.

“Whilst

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Dollar plunges to 13-1/2 year trough vs yen, below 88… European, U.S. government debt touch fresh historic lows… Morgan Stanley’s, PNB Paribas’ losses lead stocks lower… Oil slips; OPEC’s record cut doesn’t offset demand slide

The dollar fell anew against the euro and yen while yields on U.S. and European government debt traded at or near historic lows on Wednesday, a day after the bold credit easing by the Federal Reserve to combat a worsening recession.

Oil prices dropped as much as $3 a barrel after dealers said a record supply cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would not be enough to counter slumping energy demand brought on by the global economic downturn.

Equity markets on either side of the Atlantic slid as the initial enthusiasm over the Fed’s surprisingly aggressive interest rate cut on Tuesday gave way to weak financial results at key banks and

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GreenChek Technology Inc. provides innovative world-class mobile Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction technology by designing Onboard Hydrogen Generation and Injection technologies (OHGI). The GreenCheck proprietary process separates distilled water (H2O) into its two base elements, hydrogen and oxygen, using a hydrogen on-demand system. The GreenCheck system then injects the hydrogen and oxygen into the engine resulting in large decreases in emissions and reduction in fuel consumption when utilized with traditional engine combustion technology.

When the automobile is turned off, the hydrogen remains un-separated as water in a separate tank. This greatly adds to the feasibility and safety of using hydrogen power. As hydrogen is burned in the combustion chamber of a vehicle, the by-product is safe, clean, water vapor with reduced greenhouse gases.

Yesterday the company announced that they have signed a strategic European distribution agreement with Technical Environmental Solutions Europe Ltd. (TESEL). TESEL is a world-class and world-renowned distribution Company

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As every woman who has ever had dealings with a man knows only too well, it is a lot easier for people to make promises than it is for them to keep them. And when Europe's leaders met in Paris on the 12 October, a lot of fine promises (which were all, surely, very well intentioned) were made. The reality of having to live up to them, however, is turning out, as might only have been expected, to be much more complicated.Basically, the kernel of the plan which is now being operationalised seems to have been thrashed out in Washington on 11 October, when key G7 leaders met with Dominique Strauss Kahn of the IMF, and it was decided to try and erect two great firewalls (corta fuegos) - at least as far as Europe is concerned. One of these was to be co-ordinated by the EU governments, ...