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Beats By Dr Dre TREASURIES WEAKEN
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The blue-chip Dow Jones index extended its record-breaking run on Wednesday and world stock markets edged higher, led by strong gains in Asia, while the euro slid against the U.S. dollar a day before a European Central Bank meeting.
Bets that the ECB at its policy meeting on Thursday could signal future interest-rate cuts pressured the euro. The Bank of Japan will begin a two-day meeting on Thursday, but it is expected to hold its fire this week.
U.S. data showing a steady manufacturing sector and strong gains in private employment supported equity markets. Stocks, despite record highs, are still at attractive valuations,Beats By Dr Dre, analysts said.
"When you reach a record high it triggers introspection about whether we're over-valued, but I don't expect a pullback because the reasons we've climbed are still in place," said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston. "The market has the opportunity to move higher until there's evidence those factors will die out."
The S&P 500 index is trading at 13.6 times estimated 12-month earnings, compared with around 14.9 times in October 2007, when the index hit its record high, just 1.5 percent higher than Wednesday's close.
After the closing bell on Wall Street,Beats By Dre, the Dow Jones industrial average .DJI was up 42.47 points, or 0.3 percent, at 14,296.24, a record high. The S&P 500 .SPX gained 1.67 points,Beats By Dr Dre, or 0.11 percent, to 1,541.46 and the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 1.77 points, or 0.05 percent, to 3,Beats By Dr Dre,222.36.
The MSCI world index .MIWD00000PUS rose 0.15 percent.
U.S. dollar-traded Nikkei futures added 2.2 percent. Overnight in Asia, the Nikkei .N225 hit its highest in 4-1/2 years, helped by prospects of a reflationary policy in Japan to revive growth.
EURO, TREASURIES WEAKEN
Better-than-expected U.S. private-sector jobs figures reported by payrolls processor ADP on Wednesday dented the allure of Treasuries. The figures come two days ahead of the government's closely watched monthly payrolls report.
The benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note was down 13/32, the yield at a seven-day high of 1.9409 percent.
"We had ADP employment data today which surprised to the upside and that helped take (yields) higher," said Jake Lowery, Treasury trader at ING Investment Management in Atlanta.
"We have got supply coming next week,Beats By Dr Dre, right around the corner after payrolls,Beats By Dre, and it seems that with Treasuries trading in a pretty tight range lately, more and more market participants are focusing on small opportunities around the supply calendar."
The U.S. Treasury is set to auction three-year and 10-year notes next week, along with 30-year bonds.
In currency trading,Lady Gaga Monster, the euro fell against the U.S. dollar ahead of the ECB meeting.
"The market has turned dovish on the ECB and that kept the euro constrained," said Vassili Serebriakov, currency strategist at BNP Paribas in New York. "While most are expecting the ECB to keep rates steady, there are a few calls for a rate cut tomorrow, including our bank."
The euro was down 0.5 percent against the greenback at $1.2988.
The dollar also strengthened against the Japanese currency, hitting a one-week high above 94 yen.
The market is turning its attention to the BoJ's April 3-4 meeting, the first policy review under its new governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, who is an advocate of aggressive monetary easing.
Copper slumped after a two-day rebound, weighed by uncertainty about metals demand in China, the world's top consumer,Beats By Dr Dre, and economic growth in Europe.
Three-month copper fell 0.85 percent to $7,690 a ton, erasing initial gains that took it above $7,812.
Areas of concern for the global economy remain, including the Chinese government's move to cool the country's overheated property market, the possible economic impact of U.S. spending cuts and political deadlock in Italy.
Brent oil pared losses to settle down 0.5 percent at $111.06 a barrel, while U.S. crude briefly slipped below $90 before settling down 0.4 percent at $90.43.
U.S. crude oil inventories rose more than forecast last week while distillates stocks fell more than expected as refinery utilization rates posted a surprise drop, data from the Energy Information Administration showed on Wednesday.
Gold rose in late trading on expectations central banks would maintain loose monetary policy, but still in the tight price range of recent sessions.
Spot gold was up 0.5 percent $1,582.50 an ounce.
(Additional reporting by Luciana Lopez, Leah Schnurr, Ryan Vlastelica, Chris Reese and Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Dan Grebler and Leslie Adler)
Lady Gaga Monster For Sale Another tool at the ECB's disposa
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank President Mario Draghi faces intense pressure from investors,Lady Gaga Monster For Sale, European leaders and even the United States to deliver on Thursday on his pledge to do whatever it takes to save the euro.
Draghi will face the biggest test of his nine months' leadership of the central bank when it meets later in the day,Beats By Dre, and any signs that he overplayed his hand when making the pledge a week ago could see markets punish the euro zone.
The ECB has little margin for error to maintain its credibility and avoid bond yields climbing in the indebted countries on the euro zone periphery.
The market's faith in Draghi will be tested before the 1230 GMT post-meeting press conference by a Spanish bond auction that could see its debt costs rise,Beats By Dre.
"Draghi has unfortunately painted himself into a corner," JP Morgan analyst Pavan Wadhwa said in a conference call.
"The ECB does need to demonstrate its credibility ... Otherwise Draghi will lose face completely,Beats By Dre."
While central bank sources have told Reuters that bold action is probably at least five weeks away, Draghi may offer some clues on what is in the offing. He said last Thursday that the political capital invested in the euro is often underestimated.
"Within our mandate,Lady Gaga Monster, the ECB is ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro. And believe me, it will be enough," Draghi told an investment conference in London.
Spanish and Italian bond yields fell markedly after Draghi's speech, and inaction could send them higher again.
"We could see markets going back to where they were before last Thursday," said Nordea analyst Anders Svendsen,Beats By Dr Dre, who expects more words but little concrete action from the meeting.
Other countries, especially the United States, have sought to raise pressure on the ECB to act. U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the euro zone must take steps to bring down borrowing costs in troubled member states.
GERMAN DISSENT
The ECB has already bought bonds through its Sovereign Markets Programme (SMP), spending more than 210 billion euros on them so far, and re-employing an existing tool would avoid the legal battles that any novel measures could face.
While the SMP is widely viewed as having had very limited success, it is at least available immediately and could be used in a new form, combining it with the EFSF bailout fund.
The ECB could use the SMP to buy bonds after Spain makes a formal request to the EFSF and also commits to reforms.
"Based on Draghi's comments a restart of SMP (or EFSF/ESM) buying appears the most likely response," Danske Bank's Allan von Mehren and Anders Moller Lumholtz said in a note.
ECB action is hamstrung by EU rules forbidding it to finance governments. The ECB issued a legal opinion in March 2011 ruling out perhaps the biggest gun,Lady Gaga Monster, giving the ESM bailout fund rights to tap the ECB for funds to increase its firepower.
Draghi himself has argued against the move, but last week Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny broke ranks and said it could be advantageous to give the ESM a banking licence that would allow it to borrow. Some ECB watchers believe the move was a trial balloon sent up in coordination with the ECB leadership.
The ECB also has to find a way to get any measures past Germany, the euro zone's largest economy and its principal paymaster. The Bundesbank issues regular reminders of inflationary dangers stemming from non-standard measures such as bond purchases and the limits central banks face.
On Wednesday, the German central bank released an interview with Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann, where he said that "politicians overestimate the central bank's capacity and place too many demands of it".
The dilemma for Europe is that too little action now could create bigger problems later. If borrowing costs don't come down, forcing both Spain and Italy to seek aid, the ESM's 500 billion euro capacity would soon be depleted,Beats By Dre, and it would need more funds.
"I think that's a bridge that doesn't need to be crossed yet," JP Morgan economist David Mackie said in a conference call.
NO RATE CUT EXPECTED
Another tool at the ECB's disposal, lowering interest rates, is unlikely to be used again so soon after it cut its main refinancing rate to a record low of 0.75 percent in July. A Reuters poll showed that economists see another decrease in interest rates before the end of the year, but only seven out of 70 expected it to cut again this month.
As the crisis has intensified, the euro has taken a hit in foreign exchange markets. It has fallen about 15 percent in the past year to trade at $1.23. On a trade-weighed basis it trades at nine-year lows.
The falling euro is likely to delay the day when inflation falls below the ECB's target of 2 percent. In July, it remained at 2.4 percent. It also assuages fears of deflation, however, a spectre that could otherwise have prompted the ECB to consider large-scale bond buying.
"To move into large-scale asset purchases from purely monetary stance motivation will take a while," J.P. Morgan's Mackie said. "It's certainly not going to happen ... until we get into next year."
(Reporting by Sakari Suoninen; Editing by Will Waterman)
Beats By Dr Dre but not ones for the trade of guns and tank
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Delegates from around the world gather in New York on Monday for the start of month-long U.N.-hosted negotiations to hammer out the first-ever binding treaty to regulate the global weapons market, valued at more than $60 billion a year.
Arms control campaigners say one person every minute dies as a result of armed violence around the world and that a convention is needed to prevent illicitly traded guns from pouring into conflict zones and fueling wars and atrocities,Beats By Dr Dre.
Most U,Beats By Dr Dre.N. member states favor a strong treaty.
If they get their way, all signatories would be charged with enforcing compliance to any treaty by companies that produce arms and with taking steps to prevent rogue dealers from operating within their borders.
They say conflicts in Syria and elsewhere cast a shadow over the talks, reminding delegates of the urgency of the situation.
"In Syria,Beats By Dre, Sudan and the Great Lakes of Africa, the world is now once again bearing witness to the horrific human cost of the reckless and overly secret arms trade,Beats By Dre," said Brian Wood, international arms control and human rights manager at Amnesty International.
"Why should millions more people be killed and lives devastated before leaders wake up and take decisive action to properly control international arms transfers?" he said,Lady Gaga Monster.
There is no guarantee the July 2-27 negotiations will produce a treaty, let alone a good one. In February, preparatory talks on the ground rules for this month's talks nearly collapsed due to procedural wrangling and other disagreements.
In the end, the United States and other countries succeeded in ensuring the treaty must be approved unanimously, so any one country can effectively veto a deal.
But the treaty may not be doomed if that happens. Wood said nations that support a strong pact could bring a treaty to the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly and adopt it with a two-thirds majority vote if there is no consensus in July.
There are deep divisions on key issues to be tackled in the treaty negotiations, such as whether human rights should be a mandatory criterion for determining whether governments should permit weapons exports to specific countries.
Arms control advocates say a strong treaty is long overdue.
"It is an absurd and deadly reality that there are currently global rules governing the trade of fruit and dinosaur bones, but not ones for the trade of guns and tanks," said Jeff Abramson, director of Control Arms.
EYES ON SYRIA
Abramson, Amnesty's Wood and Anna Macdonald of Oxfam spoke with reporters on Friday about the negotiations.
Much of the discussion revolved around Russia's arms supplies to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad's 16-month assault on an increasingly militarized opposition has killed over 10,000 people. Russia is Assad's top arms supplier.
Wood said Russia is not the only culprit in Syria, one of many conflicts fed by unregulated arms deliveries. Western nations have also helped Assad. There are tanks on Syrian streets, Wood said, that come from Slovakia, upgraded by Italy.
Oxfam's Macdonald said: "From Congo to Libya, from Syria to Mali, all have suffered from the unregulated trade in weapons and ammunition allowing those conflicts to cause immeasurable suffering and go on far too long. In the next few weeks,Lady Gaga Monster, diplomats will either change the world - or fail the world."
One senior Western diplomat said the Syrian conflict has led to a "polarization" within the arms trade talks,Lady Gaga Monster, with Russia becoming increasingly defensive about arms supplies to its ally Damascus that it says have nothing to do with the conflict.
The campaigners outlined what they want to see in the treaty. Governments should be required to regulate the sale and transfer of all weapons, arms, munitions and equipment used in military and domestic security activities, ranging from armored vehicles, missiles and aircraft to small arms and ammunition.
Governments should also be required to make risk assessments before authorizing arms sales, make public all authorizations and deliveries and track their use. Trading without permission or diverting arms should be made a crime, they said.
One of the reasons this month's negotiations are taking place is that the United States, the world's biggest arms trader accounting for over 40 percent of global conventional arms transfers, reversed U.S. policy on the issue after Barack Obama became president and decided in 2009 to support a treaty.
But U.S. officials say Washington insisted in February on having the ability to "veto a weak treaty" during this month's talks, if necessary. It also seeks to protect U.S. domestic rights to bear arms - a sensitive issue in the United States.
The other five top arms suppliers are Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia.
Wood, Macdonald and Abramson said some of the top arms trading countries have been joining other nations in an attempt to weaken the treaty. They said the United States,Lady Gaga Monster, China, Syria and Egypt were pushing to exclude ammunition.
China, they added, wants to exempt small arms, while several Middle East states oppose making compliance with human rights norms a mandatory criterion for allowing arms deliveries.
(Editing by Todd Eastham)
Beats By Dr Dre
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Fast Retailing said it will close more of its Uniqlo clothing stores in China on Tuesday as it expects anti-Japan demonstrations there to escalate,Beats By Dr Dre.
Asia's largest apparel retailer said it will close 19 Uniqlo outlets in China on Tuesday,Lady Gaga Monster, up from seven on Monday. One store will be operating at shortened hours on Tuesday,Beats By Dr Dre, compared with nine on Monday.
(Reporting by James Topham,Beats By Dr Dre, Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)