October 22, 2012 The most important energy developments of 2012: how countries are planning for Independence Day First, a few updates: � It looks like sub-2.5% global GDP growth is showing up in the weak outlook provided by some bell-weather cyclical companies that reported so far (AMD, APD, BHI, CAT, ETFC, GE, GOOG, IBM, MCD, MSFT, PH). We’re about to see how resilient an equity market is when one of its key selling points is how expensive bonds are. The recent pick-up in leading indicators suggests that earnings expectations may stabilize early in the new year. � September US retail sales were strong and US housing data continue to improve, although as noted last week, the degree of