The following are top events and news reported Friday ET in the global financial system by Market News International:
* U.S. real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1.9% in the first quarter of 2011, according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis Friday. In the fourth quarter, real GDP increased 3.1%. The increase in real GDP in the first quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures, private inventory investment, exports, and nonresidential fixed investment. [08:30 ET]
* U.S. durable goods orders rose 1.9% in May. In addition, April was revised higher, to -2.7% from -3.6%. The increase in May partly reflected gains in nondefense aircraft (36.5%) and motor vehicles and parts (0.6%) although core orders rose too. The core capital goods orders measure, which strips out the volatile defense and aircraft components, was up 1.6% [08:30 ET]
* The White House announced Friday afternoon that Obama and Biden will hold budget-related meetings with Reid Monday morning and McConnell Monday evening. Big questions remain about whether Obama and congressional leaders can nail down a broad deficit reduction and debt limit agreement in the coming weeks. [12:44 ET]
* The next Greek bailout program will be the last one, European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark said in an interview with German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Friday. “Support programs must not continue indefinitely. With the [new] program Greece is getting a chance, a final chance,” Stark told the newspaper. “If the conditions for structural reforms, privatization and fiscal policies are not met, than there will be no further aid. [11:30 ET]
* Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said Friday that it won’t be appropriate to consider tightening monetary policy until the Fed’s accommodative monetary policies actually have a stimulative effect on the economy. Given that the economy is “weak,” the avowedly “hawkish” Fisheroffered no disagreement with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s suggestionfollowing Wednesday’s FOMC meeting that the duration of the “extendedperiod” has lengthened in wake of a downgrade in the FOMC’s GDP and jobprojections. [09:53 ET]
* S&P Friday said that despite marketplace concerns, it believes interest-rate risk is unlikely to be a problem for most of the U.S. financial institutions the agency rates, including commercial banks, asset managers, and money markets. Much depends on the amount, speed, and duration of the increases and the state of the overall economy. “But we believe more institutions are likely to benefit from, rather than suffer from, the higher interest rates we expect to see in the months ahead,” S&P said. [14:36 ET]
* Analysts describe the decision by the world’s major oil consumers to release 60 million barrels of oil into market as “risky,” and say it is just a short-term solution for a market that is likely to remain tight going forward. “You are just postponing the day of reckoning in the marketplace,” Rayola Dougher, a senior economic adviser at the American Petroleum Institute, told Market News International Friday. “Expectations for medium-term supply and demand suggest relatively tight markets going forward, and thus prices could easily come back up from a temporary period of weakness,” the Deutsche Bank analysts said. [10:43 ET]
* In her last major speech as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair Friday expressed “regret” about the exemption that was included in the risk retention rule for a category of mortgages given the controversy it has triggered. “Everyone, it seems, believes that their mortgage should receive this Qualifying Residential Mortgage, or QRM, status and thus be exempt from the small premium in their mortgage rate that will result from risk retention,” she said. [13:07 ET]
* The Federal Reserve announced Friday that minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting of June 21-22, 2011, will be released at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, July 12, 2011, a day earlier than usual. The release date was rescheduled in light of the timing of the House Financial Services Committee hearing on July 13 to receive the Federal Reserve Board’s Monetary Policy Report to the Congress. [11:30 ET]
* The Obama Administration is in no hurry to reform housing finance as long as the economy and the housing market remain on unsteady ground a U.S. Treasury official said Friday. “Unnecessary haste could prove counterproductive,” U.S. Treasury Under Secretary Jeffrey Goldstein said in prepared remarks at a housing conference. Goldstein said the administration will move forward with housing finance “at a pace commensurate with the economy and the housing market’s recovery.” [09:00 ET]
* The number of U.S. building permits issued in May was revised down to an increase of up 8.2% to a 609,000 unit annual rate, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of the Census said Friday. Permits issued were originally reported up 8.7% to a 612,000 unit rate. [09:22 ET]
* Mexico posted a trade surplus of $555 million in May on the continued increase in oil exports, even as the average price declined slightly, a 222% increase compared to May 2010, but excluding oil exports the deficit soared to of $4.5 billion, 23% higher than a year earlier, state statistics agency INEGI reported Friday. [09:01 ET]
