Here are the top five most read stories on the Bloomberg in the last day with selected excerpts (and my comments, if any, in italics).

As of 12-Sep-2007 at 9:39:09 (Beijing time):

1. Fed’s Rate Cuts are ‘Problem, Not the Cure’ - Chart of the Day

“The chart of the day compares the U.S. labor market, as measured by the non-farm payrolls report in orange, with the Fed’s key overnight rate, tracked by the white line. The arrows highlight contractions in the job market.”

As I’ve mentioned before, the Chart of the Day column is not available on the web. Here’s the chart (meaningless, I think).

2. U.S. Stocks Advance; General Motors, McDonald’s Shares Climb

“Energy companies gained after oil rose to a record close of $78.23 a barrel in New York.”

Every time I sit in a traffic jam in Beijing, on the same once-empty streets I drunkenly weaved my bicycle down years ago, I think about the price of crude.

3. Countrywide Shares Fall on Report Lender Needs Cash

“Countrywide said last week it would eliminate as many as 12,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its workforce, after investors stopped buying loans and bankers alarmed by rising subprime defaults refused to provide capital to mortgage companies.”

Be interesting to see how the terms of this new cash infusion differ from BofA’s.

4. Retirement Funds Vanish as Bankruptcies Hit Tax-Deferred Scheme

“1031 exchanges, named for a provision of U.S. tax law that defers capital gains taxes if the seller of a property buys another like it within six months, hold money between commercial-property sales. Transactions must be handled by so-called qualified intermediaries like 1031 exchanges, which have temporary custody of about $150 billion a year, an industry group says. They are unregulated in all but one state.”

Fascinating, I knew nothing about this “qualified intermediary” industry (though we did study section 1031 of the Code in business school). Would you entrust your millions (or even thousands) to an unregulated entity just to dodge taxes?

5. Fed Officials Signal Division on Risks, Rate-Cut Size

“Interest-rate futures show traders expect about 0.75 percentage point of cuts in the Fed’s target by year-end … ‘Investors’ perceptions of increased downside risks have resulted in a notable decline in the rates on federal funds futures contracts,’ San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen said yesterday.”

So Yellen is watching the fed funds futures contracts, eh? (She may even know how to use a Bloomberg.)