In the face of the Euro-crisis, so many investors are desperate for a safe place to park money, they’re paying the German government to hold onto their cash. This so-called “negative yield” on some short-term debt is like getting a safe deposit box over at the bank: you pay the bank for the privilege, interest-free, no matter how many bundles of cash you stick in there. We talked with Camilla Sutton, the Chief Currency Strategist at Scotia Capital in Toronto, about Europe’s long-term future. The Daily Pulse is up today on news that the Mei Moses Fine Art Index beat the S&P 500 six of the last 10 years, returning an average of 7.8 percent compared to the S&P’s paltry 2.7 percent.

From time to time we check in with small businessman Kelly Conklin who runs a high-end cabinetry business in Bloomfield, New Jersey. He says his headcount is back to where it was before he got mugged by the recession. The next step, Conklin says, is to be able to get everyone on his staff back to full pay (they took a 10-percent pay cut last year) and to restore paid vacations for his eleven full-time employees. And the Daily Pulse is down today on news that temporary holiday hires might be padding December’s big jobs numbers.

Today, ADP reported the biggest jump in new hires it has ever seen: 325,000 new jobs in December. Could that be a sign the economy is coming out of its stupor? Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisors thinks so. He says today’s number gives hope that the economy is finally picking up the pace of its recovery. The Daily Pulse is down today on news that despite record-low interest rates, rental vacancies are at a 10-year low of just 5.2 percent.

After a strong open to 2012 on the markets yesterday, today was more of a mixed picture. Some early concerns about tight European credit markets making it expensive for European banks to raise capital dragged the markets down in the early hours. That was countered a bit by more trickles of good news about the U.S. economy.? And the Marketplace Daily Pulse slowed today with news that 51 percent of Missouri fourth-graders need help covering the cost of lunch.

According to the Institute for Supply Management, in December a key indicator of manufacturing health was at a six-month high. The Institute for Supply Management survey suggests a bit more expansion at manufacturing plants — the index rose to 53.9 from 52.7 in November. Any number above 50 indicates expansion. But, when it comes to news we can really celebrate, one can argue there’s a difference between buying a new refrigerator because the old one conked out, and buying one because you want the fancy model with double-doors and stainless steel. It’s the difference between buying because you have to and buying because you feel secure about the road ahead. Patrick Barkey from the University of Montana in Missoula weighs in. And the Daily Pulse is up today on a Wall Street Journal report that only 92 banks failed in 2011. That’s 65 fewer than in 2010.

With markets closed today, we get some advice on handling assets and pensions in the coming year. Olivia Mitchell is a professor and pension expert and says part of the problem is that many Americans simply lack financial literacy, and to consider their own skills and knowledge as human capital. And on the Pulse, the big winners and losers in the market in 2011.

A graph of the stock market in 2011 looks like a contour map of Death Valley glued to the Himalayas. Despite huge swings, the S&P 500 index ended the year remarkably close to where it began. Derek Jaskulski from Portland Global Advisors says you got to hand it to a market that can go through such scary volatility and still end up pretty much with a shrug. He offers us some tips on what to watch in the new year.

The NAR Pending Home Sales index went up more than 7 percent in November — the highest number of pending sales since the spring of 2010. Some experts think it could be a sign that the housing market is on the verge of a recovery. Gerard Cassidy, the Managing Director of Bank Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets, is one of them. We spoke to him about his rosy view of housing in 2012.

For a quiet week on the markets, there was still enough going on the global headlines to bring things down. In the Middle East, Iran’s recent threats to block a key path for crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz had been driving oil prices up the past several days. In Europe, news that even more banks need the cheap loans the European Central Bank’s been handing out also shook up the markets. And Robert Pavlik, the chief market strategist at Banyan Partners, says for some a negative S&P is a good thing. The Daily Pulse is down today on news that public-worker pension funds lost big in the third quarter of 2011. Sometimes when it rains, it pours.