Core consumer prices declined an annual 0.1 percent and retail sales fell 1.2 pct in 2011, the first fall in two years.

“The stagnation of other developed countries is likely to push back the timing of Japan beating deflation from the mid-2010s as originally thought to the late 2010s,” said Takeshi Minami, chief economist at Norinchukin Research Institute. “The BOJ will need to keep its ultra-easy stance in the meantime. If risks from the euro-zone debt crisis heighten, it could move for an additional easing in the near term.”

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Also known as European Financial Stability Facility, the fund has its AAA rating at risk after S&P stripped two of its guarantors, France and Austria, of their top credit ratings.

“If you have a greater commitment from the other countries, then the EFSF could retain its AAA rating,” John Chambers, the chairman of S&P’s sovereign rating committee, told Reuters Insider in an interview.

“If you’ve lost two of the six AAA guarantors, either they need to increase the backing from the four remaining AAA guarantors or they need to raise some cash buffers,” Chambers said.

“The business plan assumes annualized growth of 7 percent, but we will be short of the 5 trillion yen target by about 300 billion yen at the current pace,” Chairman Fujio Mitarai told the Nikkei.

The Nikkei reported that Canon plans to boost annual sales in medical equipment from a little more than 30 billion yen now to 100 billion yen and also intends to focus on new operations, like professional video cameras for shooting movies, a field it will enter this year.

Head of Commodities Research Jeff Currie said Brent crude is the commodity with the greatest potential to break above its target. “Oil we like the most from a fundamental basis but at $113 a barrel in the current environment is pretty rich,” he told a strategy conference in London.

Brent oil is expected to end the year $127.50 per barrel and trade at an average of $120 in 2012, according to Goldman. Gold and base metals have further to rise from present level to targets of Goldman, but have scant potential above the targets.

“Oil on the other hand, given the current environment, tight fundamentals, the current geo-political situation in Iran, creates massive upside price risk relative to our target,” Currie said.

Huang Hai, former assistant minister of commerce and a member of the economic and trade policy consulting committee linked to the Ministry of Commerce said the government is working on new measures with tax rebates on vehicles and domestic appliances either having expired or due to expire.

The paper said these measures can include subsidies for families living in affordable housing that buy electrical appliances and for consumers planning to change cars.

The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares provisionally closed 1 percent higher at 1,011.14 points, which is its highest close in two months.

A number of traders and analysts warned about the risk of hangover from the brisk two-week Christmas rally when most investors come back to work later in the week.

“The odds for a post-party headache will indeed be high,” Saxo Bank trading advisor Didier Abbato said. “The bad news is that Santa did not deliver on a quick fix solution to Europe’s financial troubles.”

“This is a very hot issue right now,” said Nathan Hochman, former assistant attorney general for the Tax Division of the Justice Department and now in private practice at the law firm Bingham McCutchen.

Jeremy Temkin, a criminal tax lawyer at Morvillo Abramovitz in New York, called the subpoenas on bank clients “an extension of the pressure on the Swiss to pressure on the American taxpayer. It’s a very aggressive position.”

Under the present administration, companies have been testing the limits of U.S. antitrust scrutiny, encouraged by little apparent change in enforcement policy.

“Nobody wants to say it is based on politics, but I think there has been much greater willingness to be rigorous and thorough in the enforcement process and certainly no fear in going to court,” a source familiar with the regulator’s thinking said. “We will see more severe remedies, more extensive remedies.”

The Justice Department had no immediate comment for this story and the Federal Trade Commission declined to comment.

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