Recession has Started? Not According to Federal Tax Receipts
http://jlne.ws/MIYhFx

Capital One to pay $210 million in fines, consumer refunds
http://jlne.ws/NxEGMT

Video – Peregrine Founder Says He Spent Most of Missing Money   
http://jlne.ws/OavagA

BOE’s King Sets Meeting to Review Libor  
http://jlne.ws/OauZ52

Chart: Housing starts in June rose to an annual rate of 760,000 from May’s 711,000

http://bit.ly/MI1wOu

Bernanke slams Ron Paul’s Fed audit bill
http://jlne.ws/M9fjOw

Under Secretary for International Affairs Lael Brainard remarks on our economic relationship with China
Our country’s economic future lies primarily in our own hands.  But the choices China makes as it navigates its next phase of development will matter greatly for the kind of international playing field our companies, workers, farmers, and ranchers will face.
http://jlne.ws/NijgoF

DTCC WELCOMES TRADING ON NYSE LIFFE U.S. IN FUTURES CONTRACTS BASED ON THE DTCC GCF REPO INDEX
http://jlne.ws/OagP3L

In Germany, Who Needs the Euro When You Can Pay With Deutsche Marks?

http://jlne.ws/NFizoT

Oops: What Bernanke Said Five Years Ago Today
http://jlne.ws/Mwrlq0

BofA posts quarterly profit as chief takes aim at expenses
http://jlne.ws/NzJ1xT

CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight Issues Temporary No-Action Relief to Non-Clearing Swap Dealers
http://jlne.ws/Oa8e15

Some encouraging news out of Europe this week. The Central and Eastern European region is in a good position to weather the current debt crisis, said Nemat Shafik, the International Monetary Fund’s deputy managing director. Further, European Central Bank head Mario Draghi said European officials have made a good start toward fixing the region’s economic troubles.

Europe is in focus as the U.S. comes back from its mid-week Fourth of July celebration. The Bank of England announced it will maintain its bank rate at 0.5% and increase the size of its asset purchase programme by £50 billion to £375 billion. Meantime, the European Central Bank cut its main interest rate to a historic low of 0.75 percent and cut its overnight deposit and lending rates by 0.25 percentage points each, to 0 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively.

ECB, Bank of England Seen Easing Next Week
MarketWatch
Risky assets, including stocks and the euro, rallied Friday after the European Union managed to agree on more policy steps to address the credit crisis than markets had anticipated.
http://jlne.ws/KRyM9j

BOE’s King: Libor Needs ‘Radical Overhaul’
WSJ.com
Bank of England Governor Mervyn King Friday called for a major overhaul of the way in which one of the world’s most important interest rates is set, after it emerged that Barclays PLC paid £290 million ($450 million) to settle claims that some of its staff manipulated the rate in an effort to turn a profit.
http://jlne.ws/MZAXTU

JPMorgan Cushions Drew’s Retirement With $21.5 Million
BloombergBusinessweek
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) (JPM)’s decision to let Chief Investment Officer Ina Drew retire four days after the bank disclosed a $2 billion loss in her division allowed her to walk away with about $21.5 million in stock and options.
http://jlne.ws/NcZ8Oe

Lehman to generate $1.5bn from Aurora sale
Financial Times
Lehman Brothers has sold the assets of its subsidiary Aurora Bank in a deal which should help generate about $1.5bn for creditors of the failed investment bank.
http://jlne.ws/MdlaX6

Consumer sentiment lowest since December
MarketWatch
With consumers increasingly concerned about economic conditions, sentiment fell this month to the lowest level since December, according to data released Friday by the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters.
http://jlne.ws/N2ZET7

Customers face fallout from RBS failure
FT.com
Customers affected by the computer failure at Royal Bank of Scotland will have to wait another week before they know whether their credit ratings have suffered because of the bank’s inability to process transactions.
http://jlne.ws/MFmjUw

Buttonwood: Keeping it real
The Economist
ONE of the most remarkable features of the modern economy is that interest rates are negative in real (ie, after inflation) terms and are expected to remain so. This is not unprecedented. Real rates were negative after the second world war and again in the 1970s. But in both cases inflation was much higher than it is today.
http://jlne.ws/LFWsNy

Bank of America’s $40 Billion Mistake
WSJ.com
Bank of America Corp. thought it had a bargain four years ago when it paid $2.5 billion for tottering mortgage lender Countrywide Financial Corp. But the ill-fated decision has already cost the Charlotte, N.C., lender more than $40 billion in real-estate losses, legal expenses and settlements with state and federal agencies, according to people close to the bank.
http://jlne.ws/Lm5e0k

Bond funds could be on borrowed time
MarketWatch
In a world where financial rescues dominate headlines, U.S. government bond funds played hero yet again, rescuing portfolios in a tough second quarter.
http://jlne.ws/OI9Nqh

This week, NASDAQ OMX announced plans to launch NASDAQ OMX NLX, a new interest rate derivatives platform. Meantime, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday that the Fed is open to another round of bond purchases to lower long-term interest rates and boost growth if the job market doesn’t improve. And International Monetary Fund Chief Christine Lagarde said Europe needs to build both near-term crisis-fighting tools and to clarify how it plans greater economic union.

CBO Warns ‘Fiscal Cliff’ Could Lead to Recession
WSJ.com
The U.S. economy will likely fall into recession in the first half of 2013 if large tax increases and scheduled government spending cuts are allowed to go into effect in January, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
http://jlne.ws/KpojQs

Fed data expose US$100bn JP Morgan blunder
IFR
Official data from the US Federal Reserve have laid bare the eye-watering size of trading positions built up by JP Morgan’s chief investment office in synthetic credit indices, raising further questions about risk management standards at the bank.
http://jlne.ws/KgTQU0

BOE Saw Fine Balance in QE Vote
WSJ.com
Several members of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee came close to voting for an expansion of its bond-buying stimulus program at their May meeting, according to minutes released Wednesday.
http://jlne.ws/LphRJo

IMF Urges Greater U.K. Economic Action
WSJ.com
The U.K. should resume printing money and possibly cut the country’s already low interest rate if economic growth remains elusive, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday, while urging the country to continue with its debt-reduction plan.
http://jlne.ws/MHuIZw

Secretary Geithner Visits a Baltimore Small Business
U.S. Department Of The Treasury
This week we celebrate National Small Business Week, with members of the President’s Cabinet and other senior Administration officials participating in events across the country to highlight small employers and manufacturers as important engines to private sector growth. As a part of that effort, on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner visited Baltimore’s own Marlin Steel Wire Products, a small business with 27 employees that manufactures wire baskets and sheet metal
http://jlne.ws/KLyJeU

Fed Releases Video on Foreclosure Reviews
WSJ.com
The Federal Reserve Wednesday posted a video on its website explaining how homeowners who were financially harmed by a mortgage foreclosure can apply for a free, independent foreclosure file review.
 http://jlne.ws/JUvosZ

Germany’s Sinn: an economist with a mission
Reuters
Germany’s best known economist Hans-Werner Sinn wanted to become a missionary as a teenager. His wife believes he is one.
http://jlne.ws/LqyQHZ

New home sales, prices rise in April
Reuters
The U.S. spring home-selling season got off to a strong start in April with rising sales and prices providing evidence that a housing market recovery was gaining some traction.
http://jlne.ws/KyG0sM

Two Italian banks to sell stakes in LSE
By Philip Stafford – Financial Times
UniCredit and Intesa Sanpaolo are to sell their stakes in the London Stock Exchange, only days after two of Italy’s biggest banks were downgraded by a credit-rating agency on fears about limited access to funding.
http://jlne.ws/JR32Se

Morgan Stanley subpoenaed over IPO
By Telis Demos and Kara Scannell in New York – Financial Times
The top securities regulator in Massachusetts has issued a subpoena to Morgan Stanley as part of an investigation into whether its analysts communicated revisions of Facebook’s revenue forecasts broadly to all clients ahead of last week’s initial public offering.
http://jlne.ws/JR34cP

European Central Bank Reportedly Propping Up Greece With Secret E100 Billion Emergency Aid
International Business Times
The European Central Bank (ECB) is propping up Greece with a secret infusion of E100 Billion in “emergency liquidity assistance” (ELA) funds, the Financial Times reported Tuesday.
http://jlne.ws/JR338L