- Ukraine Deploys Military as Russia Evokes Specter of Civil War. Ukraine unleashed an offensive to dislodge militants from towns in its eastern Donetsk region as the authorities in Kiev said elements of Russian special forces were identified among the anti-government forces. Four militants were killed and two wounded when Ukrainian troops stormed an airport in Kramatorsk, taking it under control, Russia’s state-run RIA Novosti news service reported. Ukrainian units backed by armored personnel carriers blocked all approaches to the town of Slovyansk, RIA said, citing a pro-Russian activist, Sergey Tsyplakov. Part of Russia’s 45th Airborne Regiment was spotted in both of the towns, Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Vitali Yarema said on Channel 5.
- U.S. Mulls Ukraine With EU as Putin Warns on Intervention. The U.S. and European Union deliberated deepening sanctions against Russia for stoking unrest in eastern Ukraine, while President Vladimir Putin said he’s being called on to intervene in the former Soviet republic. The Kiev-based government started an “anti-terrorist” operation in the eastern Donetsk region after fighting between its forces and pro-Russian separatists who seized police and security buildings there turned deadly this week.
- Spain Anxiety on Euro Leaves Rajoy With Two-Front Battle. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is counting on Mario Draghi’s help in a battle on two fronts against the strength of the euro. With the currency reaching a level high enough to provoke the European Central Bank president to threaten action, data today showed slowing euro-area export growth and figures tomorrow will confirm the damage caused to inflation. For Spain, the effect has already been double-edged, depressing consumer prices enough to cause annual declines in an economy beset with unemployment, while also threatening its export-based recovery.
- German Investor Confidence Falls for Fourth Month in April. German investor confidence fell for a fourth month in April, highlighting the risks to the recovery in Europe’s largest economy. The ZEW Center for European Economic Research in Mannheim said its index of investor and analyst expectations, which aims to predict economic developments six months in advance, slid to 43.2 from 46.6 in March. Economists forecast a decline to 45, according to the median of 37 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The gauge reached a seven-year high of 62 in December.
- Japan’s Population Shrinks for Third Year as Ranks of Aged Grow. Japan’s population slid for a third year with the proportion of people over the age of 65 rising to a record, underscoring the challenge the world’s most-indebted economy faces in financing its aging society. The population declined by 0.17 percent to 127.3 million as of Oct. 1, as the country maintains one of the world’s lowest birth rate. People age 65 or older made up one fourth of the total, the highest-ever percentage, as postwar baby boomers head into retirement, the Internal Affairs Ministry said on its website yesterday.
- India’s Consumer Inflation Quickens, Adding Rate Pressure. India’s consumer-price inflation quickened in March for the first time in four months, keeping pressure on the central bank to keep interest rates elevated. The consumer-price index rose 8.31 percent from a year earlier, compared with a revised 8.03 percent in February, the Central Statistics Office said in New Delhi today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 39 analysts was for an 8.25 percent increase.
- Wynn Resorts(WYNN) Leads Casinos Lower on Drop in China Credit. Wynn Resorts Ltd. (WYNN) fell as much as 7.5 percent, the most in 17 months, after an analyst said less borrowing in China may lead to a drop in betting by high rollers in Macau, the casino company’s biggest market. Wynn, based in Las Vegas, slid 5.6 percent to $198.67 at 1:40 p.m. in New York after tumbling as low as $194.64 to mark the biggest intraday decline since November 2012. Other U.S. casino companies with operations in Macau also dropped.
- Worst Attack in Nigeria Capital Kills 75 in Rush Hour. The worst-ever bomb attack on Nigeria’s capital which killed at least 75 people has sparked concern Islamists are shifting their targets from the northeast to the center and south of Africa’s biggest oil producer. President Goodluck Jonathan, who visited the scene, blamed the Islamist militant group Boko Haram for the car bomb.
- Biggest Banks Face Tougher Basel Rule on Risk Concentration. Banks identified as systemically important to the global economy face tighter rules on how much business they can do with each other as part of a push to limit the chance a single failure would drag down multiple lenders.
- Emerging-Market Stocks Fall Most in Month Amid Chinese Slowdown. Emerging-market stocks dropped the most in a month after data showed a decline in Chinese lending and the weakest money-supply expansion on record, adding to concern about a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index fell 1.2 percent to 1,000.13 at 10:44 a.m. in New York. The Shanghai Composite Index sank 1.4 percent while the one-year interest-rate swap slipped to a month low. Vale SA (VALE:US), which ships half of its ore and pellets to China, drove a slump in Brazil’s Ibovespa. The Micex Index (INDEXCF) slid to the most in five weeks and a debt sale was canceled as talks between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to end a deadlock over Ukraine. China’s broadest measure of new credit plunged 19 percent in March from a year earlier and growth in M2 money supply slowed to 12.1 percent from 13.3 percent, the central bank reported today.
- European Stocks Fall Amid Ukraine Violence, German Data. European stocks declined, erasing their gains for the year, after a report that Russian troops entered towns in eastern Ukraine, and as German confidence data missed economists’ forecasts. SABMiller Plc lost 2.3 percent after saying it is considering options for the sale of its $1.04 billion stake in Tsogo Sun Holdings Ltd. Rio Tinto (RIO) Group fell 3.1 percent after reporting first-quarter iron-ore output that missed forecasts. L’Oreal SA gained 1.1 percent after posting higher first-quarter European revenue. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 1 percent to 326.58 at the close of trading.
- Gold Futures Drop Most This Year on Stimulus Concerns. Gold headed for the biggest drop this year on concern that a pickup in U.S. consumer prices will give the Federal Reserve leeway to further scale back stimulus. Palladium fell for the first time in six sessions.
- Crisis in Ukraine. Streaming Coverage.
- Boston Pays Tribute a Year After the Marathon Bombing. Citywide Moment of Silence at 2:49 p.m. Is One of Many Ways City Marks the Anniversary.
- Yellen Says More Capital Would Help Biggest, Most-Complex Banks. U.S. Central Bank Considering Additional Measures Against Risks in Short-Term Credit Markets.
- Housing Trouble Grows in China. Overbuilding by Real-Estate Developers Leaves Smaller Cities With Glut of Apartments.
- Hedge funds helped fuel financial crisis: SF Fed. Research argues link with housing selloff. Hedge funds helped fuel the global financial crisis just like banks and insurance firms, according to new research published by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco that goes against conventional wisdom on the meltdown of 2007-2009.
- Why Japanese bonds look 'terrible': Kyle Bass. (video) Hayman Capital's Kyle Bass believes Wall Street's recent declines in the biotech and social media sector, which spread to global stock markets last week, shows cracks in the Japanese economy.
BaseMetals.com:
- Base metals prices drift lower, risk-off weighs. Base metals other than the tin price were lower in Tuesday's LME premarket on growing risk aversion, while forecast-missing data from China also dampened optimism.
- Suspected Islamist rebels abduct over 100 Nigerian schoolgirls: teacher. Suspected Islamist insurgents have abducted more than 100 female students in a night raid on a government secondary school in Nigeria's northeast Borno state, a teacher said on Tuesday. He said gunmen, believed to be members of the Boko Haram Islamist group which has attacked schools in the northeast before as part of their anti-government rebellion, carried off the students from the school in Chibok late on Monday. "Over 100 female students in our government secondary school at Chibok have been abducted," said Audu Musa, who teaches in another public school in the area, around 140 km (90 miles) south of the Borno state capital Maiduguri. Musa said he saw eight bodies in the area on Tuesday morning, but did not give the identity of the victims. "Things are very bad here and everybody is sad," he said.
- Zebra Tech to buy Motorola Solutions' enterprise business. Barcode printer maker Zebra Technologies Corp said it would buy Motorola Solutions Inc's enterprise business, which makes rugged mobile computers, tablets and barcode scanners, for $3.45 billion in its biggest deal ever.
- France is the new cauldron of Eurosceptic revolution. Britain is marginal to the great debate on Europe. France is the linchpin, fast becoming a cauldron of Eurosceptic/Poujadist views on the Right, anti-EMU reflationary Keynesian views on the Left, mixed with soul-searching over the wisdom of monetary union across the French establishment. Marine Le Pen’s Front National leads the latest IFOP poll for the European elections next month at 24pc. Her platform calls for immediate steps to ditch the euro and restore the franc (“franc des Anglais” in origin, rid of the English oppressors), and to hold a referendum on withdrawal from the EU.
- London living through biggest house price bubble ever. 'Unreal' property market in capital soars by 13.8% in a year.
- Russia Must Back Off Ukraine, Germany's Steinmeier Says. Russia must distance itself from involvement with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine., German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says in an interview.
- Russia Says UN Peacekeepers in East Ukraine Unacceptable. Use of fore in eastern Ukraine is unacceptable, would halt Geneva talks, citing comments by Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to reporters in Beijing. Russia calls on Ukraine to stop quashing protests.
- Russia Deeply Concerned by Deaths in Ukraine Operation. Events in Ukraine developing along worst possible lines, citing Konstantin Dolgov, Russian Foreign Ministry's special representative for democracy and human rights. Ukrainian govt appears to have chosen to use fore to put down protests in southeastern Ukraine. Ukraine's actions risk civil war, destabilization of situation across country.
- Russia Calls on U.S. to Restrain Ukraine Crackdown. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov says military crackdown on pro-Russian militants in eastern Ukraine risks "total collapse of the state," citing an interview.
No comments:
Post a Comment