Reuters

• Hollande Says Germany Can’t Make Europe’s Decisions Alone (BBG)
• Monti Hits at Eurozone Austerity Push (FT)
• Firm that made loans to Chesapeake CEO defends them (Reuters)
• Bo Xilai's Son Doesn't Drive a Ferrari. He drives a Porsche (WSJ)
• Geithner Urges China to Loosen Hold on Finance System (BBG)
• and yet... Son of Bo Xilai Says Father’s Ouster ‘Destroyed My Life’ (BBG)
• U.S. growth slows as inventory accumulation wanes (Reuters)
• S&P 500 Dividend Payers Climb to Highest in 12 Years (BBG)
• Lacker Sees Fed May Need to Raise Rates in Mid-2013 (BBG)
• Ireland Passes Latest Bailout Review (WSJ)

While Europe is still keeping up a facade that all is well in the aftermath of the Spanish downgrade, but far more importantly its sheer economic collapse as noted earlier, just so Italy could price €4.916 billion in two On The Run 5 and 10 year bond issues (compared to a target of €5 billion), the tension is there, as can be seen in a decidedly week Italian bond auction, which saw yields soar, Bids to Cover slide, and tails spike. Italy also sold less than the maximum in off the run 2016 and 2019 bonds. All in all, while the market may experience a brief recovery rally that Italy managed to sell anything at all (that was not a Bill of course - that gimmick always does the trick), the reality that these yields are not sustainable will slowly seep in within a few hours.

In a week that Spain can't wait to end, the country was just hit with the bad news bears Trifecta, starting with the Real Madrid loss, following with the second S&P downgrade of Spain's credit rating for the year last night (or is that now SBBB+ain?), and concluding with economic data released this morning which showed that the economy is in a free fall that is approaching that of Greece, after retail sales fell for the 21st consecutive month, while Q1 unemployment soared to, drumroll please, one quarter of the working population or 24.44% to be specific, trouncing consensus estimates of 23.8%, and up nearly 2% from the 22.85% as of December 31. Which likely means that the real unemployment is far higher, and confirms not only that the economy is in free fall mode, but that Moody's, which delayed its downgrade of the country's banks to May, will proceed shortly.

The Social Security Administration made an alarming announcement recently that they will exhaust their funding capability by 2033 which was several years earlier than originally projected. As millions of baby boomers approach retirement more strain is put on the fabric of the Social Security system.  The exact timing of this crunch is less important than its inevitability.  The problem that Social Security has is "real" employment.  I say "real" employment simply to sidestep the ongoing arguments about the validity of government employment survey's from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Federal Government receives income from the Social Security "contribution" from employee's paychecks. Social security "contributions" have decreased sharply by almost $70 billion from its peak. This is due to two factors.  The first is that the number of "real" employees, while growing, is in lower income producing and temporary jobs. The second factor is that a larger share of personal incomes is made up of government benefits which does not affect social security contributions. The entire social support framework faces an inevitable conclusion and no amount of wishful thinking will change that.

Support for gold is at $1,612/oz and resistance is at $1,663/oz and $1,684/oz.

• Fed Holds Rates Steady, But Outlooks Shift (Hilsenrath)
• Has Obama Stacked the Fed? Not Really (Hilsenrath)
• High Court Skeptical of Obama’s Use of Power as Campaign Starts (Bloomberg)
• Europe Seen Adding Growth Terms to Budget Rules as Focus Shifts (Bloomberg)
• China Reaches Out to Its Adversaries Over Rare Earths (WSJ)
• Iran Says It May Halt Nuclear Program Over Sanctions (Bloomberg)
• Europe Shifts Crisis Focus to Growth as Merkel Backs Draghi Call (Bloomberg)
• Merkel Wants Rules for Raw Material Derivative Trade (Reuters)
• Evercore Profit Falls 62% as Investment Banking Expenses Rise (Bloomberg)

Following this week's ongoing battery of abysmal economic news out of Europe it will hardly come as a surprise that yet another indicator has been released and is pointing to a multi-year low in the deleveraging (elsewhere called incorrectly austere) continent, namely the Euro-area wide confidence index which just slide to the lowest leve since 2009, missing every single estimate and declining sequentially across the board... And with the UK, Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia now in re-recession, and Spain a definitive shoo in next week, the kicker is that German GDP will almost certainly now report a second consecutive GDP print in a few days, thus pushing the entire European continent in a double dip.

As if the Greeks haven't suffered enough from Northern European actions (admittedly in response to their own actions), it seems the anti-German sentiment is keeping the wealthy tourists away from the beaches. As Reuters notes today, 'German tourists are in short supply in Greece these days, frightened away by reports of visceral anti-German sentiment in some places'.  Data for the main summer holiday season shows pre-bookings from Germany down by some 30 percent. We guess the pictures of Molotov cocktails being thrown, city-wide strikes, and cardboard cities full of unemployed youths was too much but as one Greek tourist-shop-owner clarified "They're not coming because of the problems. But we don't have a problem with German people, only their government." Tourism - the one remaining possibility for Greece to drag themselves out of the quagmire (aside from olive oil and yoghurt) - is now under pressure as The Germans ("That's just the way Germans are: if there's trouble in some country, then Germans just don't go there on their holidays.") wage "an economic war against Greece". Sadly the xenophobic and nationalist tensions are indeed rising (as we warned many times in the past - and suggest will be the ultimate undoing of the political compact in Europe) as the crisis had revived anti-German sentiment from World War Two that most thought had long since disappeared. "The Greeks moved on and tried to forget, then this. If you ask me, Germany owes Greece billions for all the murders and war crimes. Germany should pay Greece what it owes."

The ECB has found its hands tied: if it continues to monetize aggressively, inflation will surge and Germany will either leave the Euro or at the very least make life very, very difficult for the ECB and those EU members asking for bailouts.

After all, doing this would score MAJOR political points for both Merkel and Weidmann who have both come under fire for revelations that the Bundesbank has in fact put Germany on the hook for over €2 trillion via various back-door deals.

All you need to read.

Trading in Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s gold ETF in India surged almost 11 fold, leading an advance in gold securities, as investors bought gold to mark the auspicious Hindu festival of Akshaya Tritiya. Volumes in GS Gold BeEs, India’s biggest exchange-traded fund backed by gold, was 937,816 units on the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. at 4:54 p.m. in Mumbai, up from 85,376 units yesterday and more than the 101,914 average daily volumes in the last six months through yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This is significant volume. Each unit represents about 1 gram of physical gold and therefore 937,816 units is the equivalent of some 29,170 ounces of gold which at today’s prices is some $47 million of daily volume for just one gold ETF in India. The Goldman Sachs India gold ETF is just one of many new ETFs in India. Trading in Kotak Gold ETF jumped more than eightfold to 226,032 units. Gold demand in India, the world’s biggest importer, may climb as much as 25% to 15 metric tons on Akshaya this year, according to Rajesh Exports Ltd., the country’s biggest gold-jewelry exporter. Assets held by local gold funds reached a record 98.9 billion rupees ($1.87 billion) at the end of March, according to the Association of Mutual Funds in India. GS Gold BeEs had assets worth 29.6 billion rupees (some $563 million (USD)) as of March 31, data from the association showed. Trading in UTI-Gold Exchange Traded Fund climbed more than fivefold, while volumes in Reliance Gold ETF, the second-biggest fund, was up more than sixfold, data shows.

• Merkel Pushes Back Against Hollande Call to End Austerity Drive (Bloomberg)
• ECB's Draghi throws crisis ball back to governments (Reuters)
• Greek Bank Chief Warns of a Possible Euro Exit (WSJ)
• China’s Wen Says Economy Will Maintain Robust Expansion (Bloomberg)
• North Korea's nuclear test ready "soon" (Reuters)
• Hong Kong Peg Architect Says Convertible Yuan `Long Way Off’ (Bloomberg)
• Hollande seeks wider EU fiscal pact (FT)
• Gavyn Davies: Why UK GDP continues to lag the G7 (FT)
• U.S. Lost AAA on Danger of Liquidity Crisis, S&P’s Kraemer Says (Bloomberg)

As we said yesterday, traders could have just slept through the entire day, ignored headlines about mad cows, auctions of European bonds maturing in a few weeks, speculation of Europe's alleged falling out favor with austerity which is very much irrelevant as all that matters is what German taxpayers/voters say, and the SEC's latest laughable scapegoating attempts, and just woken to the 4:30 pm announcement of iPhone sales in China. As expected, the entire world is now reacting. Here is Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid with the global response to the world's ongoing fascination with aspirational cell phones.

All you need to read.

While gold demand from the western investors and store of wealth buyers has fallen in recent months, central bank demand continues to be very robust and this is providing strong support to gold above the $1,600/oz level. IMF data released overnight shows that Mexico added 16.8 metric tons of gold valued at about $906.4 million to its reserves in March. Russia continued to diversify its foreign exchange reserves and increased its gold reserves by about 16.5 tons according to a statement by its central bank on April 20. Other creditor nations with large foreign exchange reserves and exposure to the dollar and the euro including Turkey and Kazakhstan also increased their holdings of gold according to the International Monetary Fund data.Mexico raised its reserves to 122.6 tons last month when gold averaged $1,676.67 an ounce.Turkey added 11.5 tons, Kazakhstan 4.3 tons, Ukraine 1.2 tons, Tajikistan 0.4 ton, and Belarus 0.1 tonnes, according to the IMF. Ukraine, Czech Republic and Belarus also had modest increases in their gold reserves. Central banks are expanding reserves due to concerns about the dollar, euro, sterling and all fiat currencies.