Shire CEO Ornskov Doesn’t Exclude Possible Other Bids: FuW

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Shire CEO Ornskov Doesn’t Exclude Possible Other Bids: FuW 2014-07-04 15:40:43.809 GMT

By Jan-Henrik Förster July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Shire Plc CEO Flemming Ornskov says co.’s board objected to AbbVie’s bid “very clearly,” Finanz und Wirtschaft reports, citing interview. Newspaper also cites Ornskov saying: * Another question is whether other companies consider a bid for Shire * Shire forecast to double revenue to $10b by 2020 is “moderate” * NOTE: June 27, Pfizer’s Failure Gives AbbVie Lessons in $46.5 Billion Shire Bid * NOTE: June 25, AbbVie CEO Won’t Rule Out Hostile Bid in Pursuit of Shire * Link to interview

For Related News and Information: First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO> First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>

To contact the reporter on this story: Jan-Henrik Förster in Zurich at +41-44-224-4116 or jforster20@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mariajose Vera at +49-89-244478-803 or mvera1@bloomberg.net

Sanofi Says Currency Hurt 2Q Business EPS by 8-10 Pct Points

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ONE 07/04 16:00 Sanofi: Pre-quarterly Results Communication BN 07/04 16:02 *SANOFI REPURCHASED 8.47M SHRS IN 2Q FOR TOTAL €654M BFW 07/04 16:02 *SANOFI SEES FX HURTING 2Q BUSINESS EPS BETWEEN 8-10 PCT PTS BN 07/04 16:01 *SANOFI SEES NEG. FX IMPACT 2Q BUSINESS EPS BETWEEN 8-10 PCT PTS BN 07/04 16:01 *SANOFI SEES NEGATIVE FX IMPACT ON 2Q SALES ABOUT 6 PCT POINTS BN 07/04 16:00 *SANOFI: ESTIMATES NEGATIVE FOREIGN CURRENCY IMPACT ON 2Q '14 BN 07/04 16:00 *SANOFI: PRE-QUARTERLY RESULTS COMMUNICATION

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Sanofi Says Currency Hurt 2Q Business EPS by 8-10 Pct Points 2014-07-04 16:07:21.277 GMT

By James Ludden July 4 (Bloomberg) -- Negative effect on 2Q sales about 6 percentage points. * Still sees vaccine sales relatively flat y/y * Sees 2014 effective tax rate ~25% vs 24% in 2013

Link to Statement:{NSN N8734U3V2800 <GO>} Link to Company News:{SAN FP <Equity> CN <GO>}

For Related News and Information: First Word scrolling panel: {FIRST<GO>} First Word newswire: {NH BFW<GO>}

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Ludden at +44-20-7673-2645 or jludden@bloomberg.net

>>> Iraq’s Sunni leadership meets in Erbil to plot against Maliki

Iraq’s Sunni leadership meets in Erbil to plot against Maliki

Iraq’s Sunni Arab leaders have converged on the Kurdish city of Erbil, holding court in marble hotel lobbies like an opposition in exile as they plot their campaign to take down Nouri al-Maliki’s government and improve their hand in the country’s ever-shifting political game. Tribal sheikhs in long robes and suited politicians puff on cigarettes and speak in hushed tones, huddling in groups on separate couches to hammer out a vision for a post-Maliki order and debate how to keep up the pressure on Baghdad.

“I’ll be clear because I know what you want to hear. We are headed toward three regions: Sunni, Kurdish and Shia,” says Ali Hatem al-Suleimani, a prominent tribal sheikh from Iraq’s western Anbar province. Yet the plans of Sunni opposed to Baghdad’s Shia-dominated government are far from clear. Priorities differ between provinces, and between politicians and militants. Internal divisions have made it hard for Sunni to coalesce as a movement and stand up to Mr Maliki’s Shia-dominated government. Since the US occupation in 2003 that toppled Saddam Hussein and his ruling Ba'ath party, Iraq has been mired in a sectarian power struggle between the disempowered Sunni minority and the Shia majority. The semi-autonomous northern Kurdistan region has been hosting Sunni leaders in their shared bid to challenge Mr Maliki’s government and call for decentralisation. Even more have set up shop in Erbil in the wake of the lightning offensive three weeks ago, led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant(known as Isis), who have seized swaths of Sunni territory and threaten to tear the country apart. Despite its success, Isis does not control the majority of fighters on the ground. Sunni leaders say the jihadi group acted as a “trigger” for an uprising by tribesmen, former Ba'athist officers and many other disaffected Sunni who felt repressed and marginalised by the government. Sunni leaders say they will not confront the jihadi group until they get concessions from Baghdad. “Do you want us to raise our flag next to their black banner and demand attention? Then they’ll fight us,” says Abdel Rizzaq al-Shammar, a bespectacled, grey-bearded sheikh. “We won’t do that until we get support from the government and the outside world.” The Sunni tribes joined US forces to crush Isis’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq, in the 2008 “Awakening” movement and insist they can do so again if they choose to. But the Sunni demands are myriad – while some focus on decentralisation, others call for a technocratic ‘salvation government’ to run new elections. Many say the real priority is changing ‘de-Baathification’ and antiterrorism laws used to sideline and imprison hundreds of thousands of Sunni. One of the roots of their disaffection – and Iraq’s crisis – may be within the list of demands Mr Suleimani enumerates to a crowd of journalists. “Number one,” he says, raising a finger. “We are not a minority.” After decades of power within the ruling Ba'ath party, critics say the Sunni still do not play politics like a minority. “They haven’t been able to adjust to their new inferior status, seeking overly ambitious demands while unable to coalesce around a single leader,” says Ramzy Mardini, an analyst at the Washington-based Atlantic council. At an empty villa in Erbil, Atheel al-Nujaifi is setting up a new governorate office for oil-rich Nineveh province, after being forced to flee the Isis takeover of Mosul, 88km away. He wants the Sunni to create their own military force and regional constitution, like the Kurds. “The Sunni can stop Isis . . . There are 2,000 Isis militants in Mosul. If you just consider the former army officers in Mosul, there are 48,000 that left or were removed from service since 2003,” he says. Yet his vision differs from that of Mr Shammar and Mr Suleimani, who want a single Sunni region. Mr Nujaifi prefers regions defined along provincial lines. In such a federal system, Nineveh alone, with 11 per cent of the population, would have a right to 11 per cent of the country’s oil revenues. Few of the Sunni leaders in Erbil seem to factor in the insurgents who have lost trust in a political leadership they say has failed. Abu Abd al-Naami, a tribal and militant leader speaking by phone from a rebel position outside Baghdad: “They sit comfortably in hotels and dare speak for us? They are liars trying to ride the wave of our uprising.” His General Tribal Revolutionaries group, which he says speaks for all Iraqi insurgents, does not even agree with the politicians’ goal of federalism. The rebels want Iraq to stay together, he says. Their hope is that an assault on Baghdad will bring down Mr Maliki’s government – and give them a role in creating a new one. “Any region established now will be over our dead bodies,” he says. “Except for the Kurds.” Mr Naami adds that Iraqi rebels formed a “National Council” to prepare a new leadership, apparently without noticing that the opposition in neighbouring Syria set up a similar, failed, body two years ago. Iraq’s Sunni rebels could be just as doomed as the three-year Sunni-led uprising in Syria: deprived of cohesion and drained by ascendant Islamist forces. In Iraq’s complicated political game, they cannot be assured of allies, as the Kurds have struck last-minute deals with Mr Maliki in the past. Sunni Arabs risk being used “like pawns in the great game between Erbil and Baghdad”, Mr Mardini warns. “Iraq’s sectarian politics is like a game of musical chairs,” he says. “When the music stops, the Sunni are usually the ones left without a chair.”

(Challenges) Why the Peugeot family chose to Thierry Peugeot key

Why the Peugeot family chose to Thierry Peugeot key

The shareholder family took the decision to land the Supervisory Board.

It's over: Thierry Peugeot, 58, is no longer at the heart of the reactor. Since Thursday, July 3 in the evening, according to a terse statement sent by Peugeot Citroën, it is no longer part of the board of the group, he was still the Vice President yesterday and the President prior to the General Meeting of 31 May He was replaced by his sister. Marie-Hélène Roncoroni, 54 Challenges announced a decision to this effect was imminent in its issue of 26 June: it was actually taken Tuesday July 1 in the afternoon.

This is an interview with Les Echos suicide granted on 23 June which set fire to the powder.He attacked his cousin Robert and his "financial approach" while itself is "industrial". Worse, there regretted the arrival of the Chinese Dongfeng capital, but also state: "I am a moral liberal capitalist and a defender of private enterprise.When the state enters the group for the first time in 200 years of history that inevitably raises questions. " A little phrase that made ​​Louis Gallois, great servant of the State and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Peugeot Citroën, literally furious.

As for the family, it is the criticism by Thierry Philippe Varin, former Chairman of the Board, in particular the failure of the partnership with General Motors, which has annoyed. "It was a rare inelegant," said one of the cousins ​​Peugeot.

Finally, Jean-Philippe Peugeot decided - in agreement with Louis Gallois, Robert Peugeot and the State - to send the letter to Thierry who resigns his role as Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors . Indeed, it was not in his own name his tenure, but by delegation Etablissements Peugeot Frères, including Jean-Philippe is the President ... and could therefore, at any time, revoke.

This is to save the face of Thierry its cousins ​​had offered him the post in question: depressed by the fall of the group and demoralized not be able to direct the Board of Directors, the family wanted to preserve it. For he had always believed that power, and was therefore kept his freedom of speech?This is what whispers in the corridors. Certainly, with the Welsh duo-Tavares supported by Robert Peugeot, a page turns for the French manufacturer.

(BFW) ArcelorMittal Considers Offer for Italy’s Lucchini, Reuters Says

ArcelorMittal Considers Offer for Italy’s Lucchini, Reuters Says
2014-07-04 15:03:11.730 GMT


By James Ludden
     July 4 (Bloomberg) -- ArcelorMittal has been carrying out
due diligence on Italian steelmaker, Reuters reports, citing
Gianni Venturi of union FIOM CGIL.
  * Any formal offer likely to include all assets or only the
    blast furnace
  * ArcelorMittal, Lucchini declined to comment to Reuters


For Related News and Information:
First Word scrolling panel: FIRST<GO>
First Word newswire: NH BFW<GO>

To contact the reporter on this story:
James Ludden in London at +44-20-7673-2645 or
jludden@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Andrew Rummer at +44-20-7073-3722 or
arummer@bloomberg.net
James Ludden

>>> Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to list 750.5m shares in NY IPO, Fiat shareholders

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles to list 750.5m shares in NY IPO, Fiat shareholders to vote on the merger plan on 1 August
FULL DOCUMENT {http://1.usa.gov/1rtDNd3}
Fiat announced on 3 July in a regulatory filing this prospectus that relates to (i) the common shares (“FCA common shares”) of Fiat Investments N.V. (to be renamed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. upon effectiveness of the Merger) (“FCA”), to be issued by FCA to holders of ordinary shares (“Fiat ordinary shares”) of Fiat S.p.A. (“Fiat”) and (ii) the special voting shares of FCA (“special voting shares”) to be issued by FCA, subject to certain conditions, to eligible electing holders of ordinary shares of Fiat in connection with the proposed merger of Fiat with and into FCA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat organized under Dutch law (the “Merger”). Upon completion of the Merger, FCA will become the holding company of the Group (as defined below).

This Registration Statement relates to common shares of the Registrant, nominal value EUR 0.01 per share (the “FCA common shares”), to be issued to holders of ordinary shares, par value EUR 3.58 per share (the “Fiat ordinary shares”), of Fiat S.p.A., an Italian joint stock company (Società per Azioni) (“Fiat”), in connection with the proposed merger of Fiat with and into the Registrant.

FCA looks to list 375,255,000 Common Shares and 375,255,000 Special Voting Shares.

The Merger is part of a reorganization of the Group following the acquisition by Fiat of the approximately 41.5 percent interest it did not already own in Chrysler Group LLC (“Chrysler”) in January 2014. The purpose of the Merger is the redomiciliation of Fiat in the Netherlands in connection with the Group’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange (the “NYSE”), as more fully described below in this prospectus. The business carried out by FCA and its subsidiaries following the Merger will be the same as the business currently carried out by Fiat and its subsidiaries prior to the Merger. In this prospectus, “Group” refers to the economic entity currently represented by Fiat and its subsidiaries prior to the Merger which, following the Merger, will be represented by FCA and its subsidiaries.

Subject to requisite shareholders’ approval, Fiat shareholders will receive in the Merger one (1) FCA common share for each Fiat ordinary share that they hold. Moreover, under the Articles of Association of FCA, FCA shareholders will receive, if they so elect and are otherwise eligible to participate in the loyalty voting structure described under “The FCA Shares, Articles of Association and Terms and Conditions of the Special Voting Shares—Loyalty Voting Structure—Terms and Conditions of the Special Voting Shares,” one (1) FCA special voting share for each FCA common share received in the Merger. The loyalty voting structure is designed to provide eligible long-term FCA shareholders with two votes for each FCA common share held.

Holders of Fiat ordinary shares are to vote on the merger plan (the “merger plan”) at an extraordinary general meeting of Fiat shareholders scheduled for August 1, 2014, on single call. Subject to the satisfaction and/or waiver of the other conditions precedent, the merger plan will become effective if a resolution approving the applicable merger plan is passed at the extraordinary general meeting of Fiat shareholders held on a single call with the affirmative vote of holders of at least two-thirds of the ordinary share capital of Fiat participating in the vote on the resolution, provided that one-fifth or more of the issued share capital is represented at the meeting.

FCA will apply to list the FCA common shares on the NYSE, where trading is expected to commence on the first business day following the effectiveness of the Merger. FCA also intends to apply for admission to listing and trading of the FCA common shares on the Mercato Telematico Azionario (“MTA”) organized and managed by Borsa Italiana S.p.A. The listing on the MTA is expected to occur shortly following the effectiveness of the Merger, subject to the approval by the Dutch and Italian competent authorities.

At March 31, 2014, Exor S.p.A. (“Exor”) owned 30.05 percent of Fiat’s share capital and has expressed its intention to vote to approve the merger plan. As of that date, Fiat owned approximately 2.76 percent of its own share capital. Fiat is not entitled to vote these shares.

Upon effectiveness of the Merger, the pre-merger shareholders of Fiat will hold the same percentage of FCA common shares as they held of Fiat ordinary shares before the Merger (subject to adjustments to reflect any exercise of cash exit rights as described under “The Fiat Extraordinary General Meeting—Dissenters’, Appraisal, Cash Exit or Similar Rights”). However, the proportion of voting power in FCA that will be held by pre-merger Fiat shareholders may be affected by the participation of shareholders in the loyalty voting structure as described in more detail in this prospectus. The Merger will become effective as of the date following the date on which the deed of merger is executed.

NY Post : Ackman’s offshore fund is top performer with 26.4% gain

The offshore hedge fund Bill Ackman plans to take public through a London Stock Exchange listing is his best performer this year, The Post has learned.
Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings is up 26.4 percent through June, including a 2.4 percent gain last month, according to an investor.
The fund launched in 2012 now has $3.1 billion and pre-marketing of the IPO is “going well,” the investor said. Ackman has told investors that he plans to raise at least $4 billion before taking the fund public.
Hedge funds aren’t allowed to market public funds in the US, which is why the listing is being done in London and marketed to Europeans and other offshore investors.
Pershing Square now has $14.7 billion in assets, with its bigger funds up 25 percent this year and 2.4 percent in June. Those numbers have made it the overall best-performing hedge fund of the year so far, according to HSBC’s widely watched ranking.

>>> Christine Lagarde – The Most Dangerous Woman in the World – IMF Advocates Ta

Link to Article {http://bit.ly/TTNPFV}

Christine Lagarde – The Most Dangerous Woman in the World – IMF Advocates Taking Pensions & Extending Maturities of Gov’t Debt to Prevent Redemption

I have gone on record that the most dangerous organization is the now French led IMF with Christine Lagarde at the helm, which has presented a concept report that debt cuts for over-indebted states are uncompromising and are to be performed more effectively in the future by defaulting on retirement accounts held in life insurance, mutual funds and other types of pension schemes, or arbitrarily extending debt perpetually so you cannot redeem. Yes you read correctly, The new IMF paper is described in great detail exactly how to now allow the private sector, which has invested in government bonds, to be expropriated to pay for the national debts of the socialist governments.

I have been warning that there is an idea that has been running around behind the curtain that the national debt of the USA could be settled by usurping all pension funds in the country. Here is a remarkable blueprint that throws all previous considerations concerning the purchase of government bonds over the cliff. The IMF working paper from December 2013 states boldly:

“The distinction between external debt and domestic debt can be quite important. Domestic debt issued in domestic currency typically offers a far wider range of partial default options than does foreign currency–denominated external debt. Financial repression has already been mentioned; governments can stuff debt into local pension funds and insurance companies, forcing them through regulation to accept far lower rates of return than they might otherwise demand.”

id/Page 8 (IMF-Sovereign-Debt-Crisis)

Already in October 2013, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), suggested the Euro Crisis should be handled by raising taxes. The IMF lobbied for a property tax in Europe that should be imposed where there are no such taxes. The IMF has advocated for a general “debt tax” in the amount of 10 percent for each household in the Eurozone, which also has only modest savings.

People are blind. They think this is authorization to go get the rich. They are going after everyone for the “rich” are tiny players in the game. People do not want to hear that. They want to think the rich can pay the bills for everyone else. That is not practical and even Julius Caesar recognized that they may be a small group, but they are the engine of the economy that creates jobs. It would have been popular for him to wipe out all the rich who he was against. But in the end, he had to solve the debt crisis by simply retroactively attribute all interest to capital in order to solve the debt crisis that led to the first civil war.

There is no discussion whatsoever of reforming the system. They are merely planning to default on savers expropriating their savings, but continue to borrow forever. Nobody is even bothering to look at the structure that simply cannot work.

The money people have saved the IMF maintains should be used for debt service by sheer force. To reduce the enormous national debt, they maintain that government has the right to directly usurp the savings of citizens. Whether saving money, securities or real estate, about ten percent could be expropriated. This is the IMF view.

Because the government debt of the euro countries has increased a total of well over 90 percent of gross domestic product, they suggest that the people should sacrifice their savings for the benefit of the state. Socialism is no longer to help the poor against the rich, but to help the government against the people. The definition has changed.

In January 2014, the Bundesbank joined the IMF project focusing on a “wealth tax”. In its monthly report they had announced: “In the exceptional situation of an imminent state bankruptcy a one-time capital levy could but cheaper cut than the then still relevant options” if higher taxes or drastic limitations of government spending did not meet or could not be implemented.

In the latest June 2014 working paper of the IMF, they have set forth yet another scheme – extending maturity. So you bought a 2 year note? Well, the IMF possible solution would be to simply extend the maturity. Your 2 year note now become 20 year bond. They do not default, you just can never redeem.

Possible remedy. The preliminary ideas in this paper would introduce greater flexibility into the 2002 framework by providing the Fund with a broader range of potential policy responses in the context of sovereign debt distress, while addressing the concerns that motivated the 2002 framework. Specifically, in circumstances where a member has lost market access and debt is considered sustainable, but not with high probability, the Fund would be able to provide exceptional access on the basis of a debt operation that
involves an extension of maturities (normally without any reduction of principal or interest). Such a “reprofiling” operation, coupled with the implementation of a credible adjustment program, would be designed to improve the prospect of securing sustainability and regaining market access, without having to meet the criterion of restoring debt sustainability with high probability.

(THE FUND’S LENDING FRAMEWORK AND SOVEREIGN June 2014)

Now the June 2014 report has a new, far-reaching proposal. This shows how lawyers think in technical definitions of words. There is no actual default if they extend the maturity. You could buy 30-day paper in the middle of a crisis and suddenly find under the IMF that 30 day note is converted to 30 year bond at the same rate.

The huge national debts could be reduced also according to the IMF by just expropriating all private pension funds. The vast amount of people are watching TV shows, sports, or something other than government and they know that. The press will not report the real risk for that is boring news. Hence, where his occupational pensions exist, you can suddenly wake up and find your future is now applied as a contribution to government – thank you for your patriotism. They have successfully convinced the evil is the rich so pay attention to them and you will miss the political hand in your back pocket.

What investor can really judge what is hidden in his fund when the government is denying democratic processes and control the press?

One thing is certain: For years, all pension funds bought government bonds because they were “conservative” and “safe”. I have been warning that the threat would be the Sovereign Debt Crisis. The idea of a pension fund is really now seriously an outdated assumption that government bonds are extremely safe. And you want to even think that the stock markets are over priced and will crash? Where will money go? Government bonds again?

The IMF is an unelected dictatorship over people’s lives and it is now calling the “New profile” of the strategy for public debt must be reassessed. The paper is nothing more than an orderly liquidation of government debt – at the expense of bondholders who can be forced pensioners without their knowledge. The focus is on countries that either have no access to the financial market, or “whose debt is considered sustainable, but not with a high probability.”

The Eurozone is trying to federalize because they know what is coming. The IMF is telling them the path of options ahead but all are designed to sustain the power-base, not what is good for the people. The Euro-leaders have now given up and decided to make more debt while maintaining lip-service to savings. Thus, the Eurozone is likely to soon be directly affected by the IMF plans for when the market get wind of this on the horizon, it will be too late. For you see, pension funds do not THINK out of the box. Nobody will be the first to sell-out government bonds entirely. What if they are wrong and nothing happens? Then the manager loses their job. Even if they find themselves trapped by government either extending their maturities or expropriating all their assets, they will justify themselves as everybody else lost so they did nothing wrong.

Obviously, these ideas from the IMF would mean that if the debt is no longer manageable, then the power of government entitles them to just usurp everything to maintain the power-base. The plan of the IMF I believe will result in widespread civil unrest AFTER the fact. The mere fact that these proposals target investors in government bonds who must adjust to debt forgiveness or negative interest rates shows this is all about sustaining government power. Recently, the IMF has argued the ECB must purchase government bonds in the euro countries to sustain the Eurozone. They are like the terrorist leaders who brainwash kids to blow themselves up for the good of the cause while they would never do the same thing themselves.

It is noteworthy that the IMF imagines this haircut on private creditors as a kind of condition that bankrupt states must do to get any further loans from official creditors. Do as we direct of else. This is what the IMF is doing to Ukraine, no less what they did to Cyprus.

However, unlike private corporate debt where there are the real balances and tangible assets secured by real products and business, the IMF proposal amounts to a global nationalization of public finances, which are unsecured debt. This distinction is important. You get nothing from defaults in government debt but a portion of what remains in private debt. Because the states with the this infinite loop of perpetual borrowing with no intent on paying anything back, we are captured in a world of financing that has become completely corrupted.

The debt load of governments on a global basis is so oppressive, we are rapidly approaching not just the collapse in Democracy, but the collapse or the elimination of all market mechanisms in the public finance. If they cannot sustain the debt, default and FORCE the so many unsuspecting pensioners to surrender their future to allow politicians to live comfortably. They see no problem with people holding government debt should be punishable with massive losses, and are blame for extorting government even demanding interest.

The IMF proposal comes during the World Cup knowing that the press will not cover it much and the average person cares more about who wins what than the sneak attack upon their own lives. This far-reaching plan for the expropriation of savers, investors and retirees clearly shows the reality of socialism.

>>> JPM Cuts Its Original 2014 GDP Forecast In Half, Sees Slowest Full Year Grow

JPM Cuts Its Original 2014 GDP Forecast In Half, Sees Slowest Full Year Growth Since 2009

It was precisely 6 months ago, on January 3, when JPM, blissfully unaware of the powerful snowstorms that were raging outside its office, a condition which would later be branded with the technical economic term "harsh weather", predicted that the US economy would grow by 2.5% in the first half and 3.0% in the second, leading to a solid 2.8% annualized growth for 2014, a growth rate which would mean the US economy would grow at the fastest pace since 2005.

Fast forward exactly six months later, when on July 3, "harsh weather" firmly in the rear view mirror (but blissfully unaware of the record drought slamming California, the monsoons about to crush India, and El Nino set to ravage the US in the fall, not to mention two regional civil wars, a China whose housing bubble has popped and whose rehypothecation scandal means Chinese GDP is about to fall off a cliff, and global trade generally grinding to a halt), JPM has just followed with a revised GDP forecast. Its latest (and certainly not least) prophecy for the full year GDP: precisely one half of what it expected 6 months ago, or just 1.4%, following a cut to Q2 GDP to 2.5% from 3.0% (which means negative growth for the entire first half, something in a less insane world would be called a recession), while keeping Q3 and Q4 GDP miraculously at 3.0% for both quarters.

From JPM:

GDP growth and job growth go their separate ways: The contrast between weak GDP growth and strong job growth in 1H14 only intensified this week. Real GDP growth in 1Q14 was -2.9% saar, and we are reducing our forecast for 2Q14 to 2.5% (from 3.0%). Real GDP appears to have contracted in the first half. At the same time, payroll employment averaged 231,000 in 1H14, the strongest six-month run of job growth in the expansion to date. The obvious result is a sharp decline in productivity in 1H14 and a surge in 1H14 unit labor cost estimated at about 5% saar.
In other words, instead of above-trend, "escape velocity" GDP, the highest in nearly a decade, in 2014 US GDP is now poised to grow just 1.4% - the lowest annual growth rate since the Lehman crash.



What a difference a snow storm makes!