The US equity market rally took a day off as the S&P 500 closed slightly down on the day. BHP Billiton warned that demand for iron ore from China would level off, which was everyone's favourite pick as the cause for the early decline in global stock markets. "Speaking at an industry conference in Perth, Australia, on Tuesday, Ian Ashby, president of BHP's iron ore division, said the company expected growth in Chinese demand for iron ore to slow to single-digits," the FT writes (Financial Times). Bernanke gave his first in a series of four lectures to students at George Washington University. The topic of today's discourse was the origins of the Federal Reserve; goldbugs were doubtless shocked to learn that he wasn't around for that (pdf slides from the presentation). Glencore agreed to buy Viterra for C$6.1bn, or US$6.1bn, in cash (Financial Times). The Saudi oil minister told reporters in Doha that high oil prices were "unjustified" and added that his country was ready to boost production if necessary. The FT reports: "Saudi Arabia had 2.5m b/d of additional production capacity, which it could bring online if necessary, he said. The kingdom is likely to be producing about 9.9m b/d of oil in April and exporting roughly 7.5m-8m b/d of that, he said. Financial Times. House Republicans unveiled their budget proposal (Financial Times), and Republican voters in Illinois go to the polls in the latest state primary (Wall Street Journal). It's UK budget day! Check out the FT's preview and advance coverage here. In the US, the onslaught of housing data this week continues as we get existing home sales for February from the National Association of Realtors at 10am EST. Bernanke murdered the gold standard in today's lecture. We haven't seen Joe this excited since... well, probably since the last payroll report. Still, good post. James Montier's latest: "What goes up must come down!" Gavyn Davies on the "healthy" rise of US Treasury yields. Karl Smith on Bill Dudley's economic outlook. How house prices burden the economy. A meltdown explanation that melts away. More from Greg Ip on the US output gap. This entry was posted by Cardiff Garcia on Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 at 21:19 and is filed under Capital markets.