FEDERAL RESERVE

China has stubbornly refused to cede to U.S demands to let the yuan rise against the dollar. The question is, among the US and China who will gain and who will lose if China ever agreed to appreciate its currency?

There are plenty of concerns surrounding U.S. Treasuries, yet a Treasury crisis doesn't seem to be happening.

The potential expiration of the Build America Bond (BAB) program at the end of this year may have a negative near-term impact on the prices of the overall municipal bond market.

European equities will beat 2010 gains by the end of next year, as companies get some help from better earnings and record-low interest rates that will overcome the sovereign debt crisis, Bloomberg said, citing a survey of 13 strategists.

Stocks finished narrowly mixed in lethargic trading as an early jump on a benign jobless claims data faded away on a stronger U.S. dollar and later on news that Democrats in the House voted against considering the tax cut extensions that President Obama negotiated with Republicans.

Foreign central banks' overall holdings of marketable securities at the Federal Reserve fell in the latest week, data from the U.S. central bank showed on Thursday.

Insurance giant American International Group has signed a debt repayment deal with Federal Reserve Bank of New York, paving way for the Treasury Department to sell a significant stake in the company early next year.

Consumer credit in the U.S. rose during October, mainly boosted by a rise in student loans, a report by the Federal Reserve said on Tuesday.

Two Morgan Stanley economists predict that U.S. 10-year Treasury yields will rise to about 3.75 percent by the end of 2011 because of accelerated economic growth.

On an interview today with CNBC, famed investor and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers said some European countries should be allowed to go bankrupt so that they can restructure their debt without hurting other parties.

Fundamentals for the commodity currency now back AUD/USD targeting 1.0006, as the 61.8 percent fibonacci from 1.0181 to 0.9723 projects.

GBP/USD has broken above the 1.5786 weak resistance (100-day SMA) and is heading towards the key 1.5838 medium-term resistance, as predicted by IBT FX on Monday. The level is also suggested by the upper Bollinger band on 4-hour chart.

The struggle of EUR/USD to free from the downward channel formed early November intensified after Friday's weak US jobs data, but the pair is finding it really difficult to break above the key long-term support-turned resistance of 1.3422.

China is likely to raise interest rates in the coming days in a demonstration of the government's resolve to tame inflation, an official newspaper said on Tuesday.

A study by IMF economists Luc Laeven and Hui Tong found that U.S. monetary policy shocks drive global stock market prices.

Stocks, which fell early in the session on some gloomy remarks on the economy from Federal reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, pared much of their losses later in the day on hopes that The Republicans and Democrats in Congress can hammer out a compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts as well as unemployment benefits.

Investors who are worried about the health of the stock market might take some solace from the evidence that the U.S. equities have performed exceptionally well during the third year of a presidential term (Barack Obama enters the third year of his administration in January 2011).

The Federal Reserve's move to purchase an additional $600 billion in bonds carries risks and should be reviewed on a regular basis, Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said on Monday.

In a CBS interview, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke took shots at foreign critics who openly bashed QE2 in the days leading up to the November 11 G20 Summit.

S&P 500 Index slid 3.63 points, or 0.31 percent, to trade at 1,220.95 at 09:55 a.m. EST. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 30.08 points, or 0.26 percent, to trade at 11,352.01. The Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.28 percent to trade at 2,584.64.

Futures on the S&P 500 are down 0.30 percent to 1,219.80, futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average are down 0.21 percent to 11,340.00 and Nasdaq100 futures are down 0.19 percent to 2,183.00.