Barclays (BCS) is reportedly in talks to sell its entire asset-management unit, Barclays Global Investors, for as much as $10B. That’s more than double the $4.4B Barclays would get for BGI’s iShares ETF unit from CVC Capital Partners, which gave Barclays until June 18 to seek better offers.

Douglas A. McIntyre from 24/7Wallst

GM (GM) is about to notify about 20% of its dealer network that it will not renew its contracts with them when they expire next year. By most estimates well over 1,000 GM dealers will be cut off.

The action will add to unemployment nationwide and it could cause a significant increase in joblessness over the next several months. The 1,000 GM dealers probably employ over 50,000 people. Each dealer has its own suppliers and vendors so the impact will not be contained to only the workers that the dealer have on their payrolls.

Between Chrysler and GM, the total effect on unemployment due to dealership closings will be 100,000 people, and perhaps more. The other large car companies are also trying to improve the efficiency of their distribution systems. Toyota (TM), Ford (F), Honda (HMC), and some of the smaller car companies will  certainly make cuts of a magnitude similar to the ones by Chrysler and GM. That could push a total of 200,000 people out of work, many of them located in areas which are already economically depressed.

You will notice from the chart below that the U.S. Dollar Index is weighted heavily in the euro (57.6%). Therefore, when this index crashes, the first place we should look to is the EUR/USD pair. This is the first obvious beneficiary of “dollar weakness”.

Sean Hannon of Stocktrading ToGo

Efficient markets are based on the assumption that rational people enter transactions with the intent to maximize gains and minimize losses. While this theory is sound, most investors are not the purely rational robots that efficient markets rely upon. Instead, emotions often cloud our decision-making and prevent us from acting in a rational manner.

Knowing we can never conquer our inherent emotional biases, we should seek to understand the range of emotions we may experience as investors and how it affects our interactions with the market. A common market psychology cycle exists that shines light on how emotions evolve and the effect they have on our decisions. By understanding the stages of this cycle, we can tame the emotional roller coaster. The fourteen stages are:

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Tyler Durden of Zero Hedge

The DXY continues to tunnel deep inside 200 DMA territory, with equity momo day traders and overcaffeinated hi fi program traders taking a cue from the 2005 playbook and buying up equities, making even more impromptu follow on offerings not a question of if but when. Then again, nobody said bizarro market is over, and in this upside-down world dilution is a good thing.