● US Employers Added More Jobs In December Than Expected | ActionForex
● German November Factory Orders Fall More Than Forecast | RTT
● Euro zone retail sales rise 0.6% in November | Investing.com
● Oil halts four-day drop, U.S. stockpile data supports | Reuters
● Fed looks past a world in turmoil, confident in U.S. recovery | Reuters
● Can Germany save the Euro? | MacroBusiness

Private payrolls in the US increased by 241,000 in December, according to this morning’s ADP Employment Report. The gain, which beat expectations by a sizable margin, marks a moderate improvement over November’s revised 227,000 advance. More importantly, the year-over-year pace of growth accelerated to roughly 2.2% through last month—the fastest annual growth rate since August 2012. Today’s data comes at a critical time, when concerns that Europe’s economic trend is stagnating or worse. Granted, the offshore risks for the US remain substantial, but ADP’s latest release suggests that the recent improvement in job growth was intact at last year’s close.
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US economic data has been improving lately, but Mr. Market’s no longer in a mood for celebrating. The US equity market has tumbled sharply in recent days. Meanwhile, the appetite has surged again for the safe haven of US Treasuries. Is all this just noise, or a warning signal that the recent acceleration in the US macro trend has already run its course? No one really knows the answer at this point, in part because you can still make a compelling case for both narratives. Clarity is coming, however, and perhaps as early as this week, once we see updated numbers on US payrolls for December.
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● Eurozone consumer inflation rate turns negative in Dec | Bloomberg
● Brent oil slips below $50 on mounting glut, slack demand | Reuters
● Soaring Bond Prices May Sound an Economic Warning | NY Times
● US services firms expand at steady but slower pace in December | AP/WaPo
● German Unemployment Rate At Record Low in December| RTT
● Italy Jobless Rate At A Record High In November | RTT

Private nonfarm payrolls in the US are projected to increase by 213,000 (seasonally adjusted) in tomorrow’s December update of the ADP Employment Report, based on The Capital Spectator’s median point forecast for several econometric estimates. The median projection is marginally above November’s increase.
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The expected risk premium for the Global Market Index (GMI) continued to trend lower through December. GMI — an unmanaged, market-value weighted mix of the major asset classes — is now projected to earn an annualized 3.6% over the “risk-free” rate for the long term. (For details on the equilibrium-based methodology that’s used to generate the forecasts, see the summary below). Today’s updated estimate, which is based on data through the close of last month, fell 30 basis points from November’s 3.9% projection. But if yesterday’s sharp drop in financial and commodity markets persists in the days ahead, GMI’s expected risk premium will probably rebound in the near-term future. Meanwhile, using data through the end of 2014 suggests that GMI’s anticipated return over the risk-free rate suffered another decline last month.
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● Dow plummets 331 as oil drops below $50 | USA Today
● Eurozone PMI: slowest growth in over a year in Q4 | Markit
● Greece vs Europe: who will blink first? | Telegraph
● 2014 car sales best in U.S. since ’06 | Detroit News
● German inflation falls to five-year low | BBC
● Gold Surges as Flight to Safety Spurs Longest Run Since October | Bloomberg

US real estate investment trusts (REITs) led the performance race in December among the major asset classes, rising a healthy 1.9% in the final month of 2014, based on the MSCI REIT Index. US REITs were also the top performer for the calendar year among the major asset classes.  For the rest of the field, returns in December were mostly flat to negative. The big loser last month and for 2014 as well: commodities, broadly defined (Bloomberg-UBS Commodity Index). The US stock market was flat last month, although for year just passed US equities earned a respectable 12.6% (Russell 3000). That’s a comparatively soft gain relative to the stellar advance for US market in the last few years, but it’s above average in comparison with long-term results.
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● Euro zone Sentix investor confidence improves to 5-month high | Investing.com
● UK construction PMI falls to lowest since July 2013 | Reuters
● Euro touches a nine-year low against US dollar | BBC
● Spain Jobless Claims Fall Most Since 1998 | RTT News
● Samaras Warns of Euro Exit Risk as Greek Campaign Starts | Bloomberg
● Oil hits 5-1/2-year lows on supply glut | Reuters

● Balanced Asset Allocation: How to Profit in Any Economic Climate
By Alex Shahidi
Summary via publisher (Wiley)
The conventional portfolio is prone to frequent and potentially devastating losses because it is NOT balanced to different economic outcomes. In contrast, a truly balanced portfolio can help investors reduce risk and more reliably achieve their objectives. This simple fact would surprise most investors, from beginners to professionals. Investment consultant Alex Shahidi puts his 15 years of experience advising the most sophisticated investors in the world and managing multi-billion dollar portfolios to work in this important resource for investors.
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