Statements from China concerning its foreign reserves would indicate that China and the U.S. are joined at the hip. Yi Gang, head of State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said: "The U.S. Treasury market is the world's largest government bond market. Our foreign exchange reserves are huge, so you can imagine that the U.S. Treasury market is an important one to us."

Total sales, without the assistance of fuel transactions, went up 2%. Identical supermarket revenues increased 1.2%. Not too invigorating, certainly, but what about the bottom line? Don't search for comfort there, because per-share profit dropped substantially to 39 cents per diluted share from 53 cents per diluted share in the comparable frame.

On Tuesday, investors drove call option implied volatility levels higher in the Mortgage Investment industry, and drove put option implied volatility levels higher in the Rental & Leasing Services industry.

Bullish Volatility Skews:

Capstead Mortgage Corp. (CMO)---part of the Mortgage Investment industry---came in at the top with a volatility skew of 1.24. This may come as a surprise as CMO is down -2.22 percent for the past month.

Jose Manuel Barroso, EU President, said he would ban speculative derivatives trades outright. CDS trading is a $40 trillion dollar global market which insures corporate and government debt.

"We want to make sure the playing field is level."

So said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, speaking in regard to the Obama administration's mounting concern about consolidation of control in America's agricultural system.

In light of that statement, investors may wish to exercise due caution when making future plays in companies such as Monsanto (MON), Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and Tyson Foods (TSN), just to name a few. A recent Associated Press report indicates that the administration is undertaking a series of workshops aimed at creating policy initiatives with a focus on awakening competition in agriculture.

Interest rates are the top concern among global financial services firms in the pension risk management business.

According to a new survey by Aon's (AON) human capital arm, 58% of the big players in the pension risk management space cite this factor as the biggest issue facing defined benefit pension plan sponsors from the present to 2013. Longevity risk is next, with 21% of the responses, followed by equity markets at 15% and inflation at 6%.

Late last month, H&R Block (HRB) dropped a bomb on investors. The company slashed its outlook because of the slow start of the tax season. As a result, H&R Block's stock price fell 13%.

So Monday, the company reported its official fiscal third-quarter results. Profits came to $50.6 million, or $0.15 per share, up from $47.4 million, or $0.14 per share in the same period a year ago.