The report below comes courtesy of Nouriel Roubini’s team of analysts at RGE, taking a look at some recent monetary policy trends in advanced economies. This content is excerpted from a longer piece, “Global Monetary Policy Review,” which includes in-depth analysis of when the world’s emerging markets might shift interest rate strategy. However, the longer piece is available only on a subscription basis.

Last week was a busy one for the Federal Reserve (Fed), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of England (BoE). Policymaking is tricky when different asset classes are sending very different signals about the economy. However, those different signals are themselves a byproduct of policy. In the US, bond markets are discounting a sluggish U-shaped recovery or even a double-dip recession, while risky markets are signaling a strong V-shaped recovery ahead. Which is right? While RGE leans towards the

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The dollar remains well bid…G-7 to hand currencies off to G-20? Car Sales collapse…Auditing the Lehman cash movements…And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

Good day… And a Happy Friday to one and all! Yesterday, I welcomed you to October. I had been prepared to tell you about a famous radio station here in St. Louis, that has long called October… Rocktober… But forgot, as usual! But anyway… It’s the first Fantastico Friday of Rocktober!

Today is a Jobs Jamboree Friday too! And… I’m not getting a good feeling about today’s labor report at the Jobs Jamboree. The forecast is for jobs losses to fall from -216,000 to -175,000, but the unemployment rate to tick up to 9.8% from 9.7%… I got the feeling, baby, baby, I got the feeling… Oops, a little James Brown on Fantastico Friday never hurts! But what I was saying was I’m getting the feeling that there are risks

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SAP AG (SAP) reported total revenue of €2.58 billion, a decline of 10% year over year, for the second quarter of 2009. US GAAP basic earnings per share from continuing operations rose 6% to 36 pence. Software revenue fell 40% year over year due to difficult operating environment worldwide.

SAP closed major contracts in several key regions during the period, including Federal Interior Ministry of Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany, Group Danone, Shoosmiths and Statoil ASA in EMEA, Baker Hughes, Boston University and Confederação SICREDI in the Americas and China Export & Credit Insurance Co., Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Ministry of Finance, Singapore and Tata Teleservices Ltd in Asia Pacific Japan.

Quarterly operating income was €431 million, up 5% year over year, with a margin of 25.1%, an increase of 4.4 percentage points.

Operating cash flow from continuing operations was €1.83 billion, an increase of 34% year over year. Free cash

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Gold was flat until the noon hour on Wednesday, when it finally made a modest upmove and held in positive territory despite easing on the Globex to finish at $890.70/oz., up $7.40. Overnight, gold has inched higher.

Platinum made its big move just after Hong Kong closed, adding about $25, then leveled off and did little for the rest of the day, ending at $1169/oz., up $16. Overnight, platinum is sharply higher.

Silver had a strong day, rising from unchanged at the beginning of the New York session to a peak just short of $12.40 on the Comex, before sliding on the Globex to close at $12.32/oz., up 26 cents. Overnight, silver is trending higher. (Click here for charts)

There were no really major moves among the precious metals yesterday, but all posted decent gains against a backdrop of wildly volatile equities, declining oil prices, and a weakening dollar.

Analysts cited

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /According to Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach last week, Russia's economy shrank by 7 percent year on year in the first quarter of 2009, a staggering turnaround for an economy which has just enjoyed eight years of solid oil-fueled growth.br /br /"These figures are worse than we expected," Klepach said at a press conference in Kiev,citing preliminary figures. Klepach also stated that net capital outflows reached $33 billion in the first quarter of 2009, following record outflows of $130 billion in the second half of last year.br /br /pa href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SdsTJmo57XI/AAAAAAAANbI/gYR1beR2NiI/s1600-h/russia+gdp.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5321868440380239218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 229px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SdsTJmo57XI/AAAAAAAANbI/gYR1beR2NiI/s400/russia+gdp.png" border="0" //abr /br /The Russian State Statistics Service have also released official gross domestic product figures for the fourth quarter of 2008. GDP was up 1.2 percent year on year, the worst reading for any quarter since ...

The tiny double bottom that occurred shortly after the close of Comex trading on Wednesday afternoon may have been the low in gold for this move. Both were ever so slightly below $900. From there, gold rose gradually until about an hour after the London a.m. gold fix on Thursday morning. Then it declined gently until shortly after the London p.m. fix was in. From there, away it went…until a not-for-profit seller showed up in after-hours Globex trading in New York and capped the little price spike that occurred at 3:30 p.m. New York time.

click to enlarge

Silver’s antics were the same as gold’s, although the price action was more exaggerated. Silver began to rise once the London a.m. gold fix was in…then declined until shortly after the London p.m. fix…and then, it too, was off to the

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by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Is China about to lead the charge out of the current slump, or is the Chinese economy about to succumb to it? This appears to be one of the most interesting and most hotly debated questions of the moment. On the one hand the latest manufacturers PurchasingManufacturers Index seemed to suggest the contraction in China's economy slowed in January, while other data, in particular producer price inflation, loan growth, employment figures and movements in external trade seem to give a rather different impression.br /br /br /pa href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZRnYUukz5I/AAAAAAAAMpc/G_zSwGhfSLQ/s1600-h/oecd+china.png"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301976328900497298" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 238px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZRnYUukz5I/AAAAAAAAMpc/G_zSwGhfSLQ/s400/oecd+china.png" border="0" //abr /br /strongExternal Trade Drops Sharply/strongbr /br /China’s exports fell at the fastest rate in almost 13 years in January while imports fell completely off the cliff, plunging at the record rate of 43.1% year on year, indicating that the ...

Is China about to lead the charge out of the current slump, or is the Chinese economy about to succumb to it? This appears to be one of the most interesting and most hotly debated questions of the moment. On the one hand the latest manufacturers PurchasingManufacturers Index seemed to suggest the contraction in China’s economy slowed in January, while other data, in particular producer price inflation, loan growth, employment figures and movements in external trade seem to give a rather different impression.br /br /br /pa href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZRnYUukz5I/AAAAAAAAMpc/G_zSwGhfSLQ/s1600-h/oecd+china.png”img id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5301976328900497298″ style=”DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 238px; TEXT-ALIGN: center” alt=”" src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ngczZkrw340/SZRnYUukz5I/AAAAAAAAMpc/G_zSwGhfSLQ/s400/oecd+china.png” border=”0″ //abr /br /strongExternal Trade Drops Sharply/strongbr /br /China’s exports fell at the fastest rate in almost 13 years in January while imports fell completely off the cliff, plunging at the record rate of 43.1% year on year, indicating that the contraction in the world’s third-biggest …

by Edward Hugh: Barcelonabr /br /Yesterday's comments by Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa that conditions in Japan's economy are severe and that monetary conditions are rapidly tightening should not be taken lightly in my opinion. Viewed alongside last weeks data revision which showed that Japan’s gross domestic product contracted much more rapidly in the third quarter than initially thought, and the recent admission by Japan’s Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa that employment conditions are also nowbecoming “severe.” it is clear that we are in the process of settling-in for what promises to be quite a long and hard recession.br /br /Revised data released last week showed that gross domestic product fell on quarter-by-quarter basis by 0.5 percent during the three months up to September, as compared with the preliminary estimate of only a 0.1 per cent decline. Year on year, the economy is now thought to have also contracted by ...