- Ukrainian Forces Inflict Rebel Losses After Poroshenko Win. Ukraine’s government said it inflicted “significant” losses on pro-Russian rebels in the east and retook Donetsk airport a day after President-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed to wipe out the separatists. Troops killed “dozens” of rebels without suffering any losses, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said, while the mayor’s office in Donetsk said 40 people died and 31 were wounded. Gunmen also broke through the border from Russia after a firefight with government forces overnight, and the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for humanitarian and military help, according to separatist leader Denis Pushilin. “The anti-terrorist operation is in an active phase now,” First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaliy Yarema told reporters in Kiev today. “We’ll continue this operation until there are no terrorists on Ukraine’s territory.”
- Micex Drops With Ruble as Ukraine Intensifies Fight With Rebels. Russian stocks and the ruble fell after Ukraine’s President-elect Petro Poroshenko vowed to step up military action against separatists in the east of the country, where 40 people died in clashes. The Micex Index (INDEXCF) fell 2.2 percent to 1,417.32 by the close in Moscow today, the steepest decline since April 24. The ruble slid 0.5 percent to 39.9831 against the central bank’s target basket of dollars and euros by 6 p.m. and the yield on 10-year government ruble bonds jumped 18 basis points to 8.80 percent.
- China Said to Study IBM Servers for Bank Security Risks. The Chinese government is reviewing whether domestic banks’ reliance on high-end servers from International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) compromises the nation’s financial security, people familiar with the matter said, in an escalation of the dispute with the U.S. over spying claims.
- China Sinking Fishing Vessel Raises Tensions With Vietnam. Vietnam and China traded barbs over the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat, their most serious bilateral standoff since 2007 as China asserts its claims in the disputed South China Sea. “It was rammed by a Chinese boat,” Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said by phone of the Vietnamese vessel, with the crew of 10 rescued after the scrap. The incident occurred after some 40 Chinese fishing vessels encircled a group of Vietnamese boats in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, the government in Hanoi said in a statement on its website.
- Leverage Addicts Get Junk-Loan Fix With Derivatives ETF. Forget complicated total-return swaps and collateralized loan obligations. A proposed exchange-traded fund will make it much easier for anyone to use borrowed money to double down on junk-rated loans. The AdvisorShares Pacific Asset Enhanced Floating Rate ETF will use derivatives to boost gains on high-yield loans, allowing retirees and pensioners to magnify bets on debt that promises higher yields when interest rates rise, according to a U.S. regulatory filing. The fund, which would be actively managed, is currently pending approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Why use leverage now? Because for buyers who have faith the riskiest companies will pay back their obligations, the loans just aren’t quite yielding enough. With a little more risk, the thinking goes, the return will be sweeter. Of course, any losses will also be more painful. The problem is, if fans of junk loans are wrong, their juiced investments won’t just increase the threat to profits, they’ll also have a magnified effect on the $1.1 trillion market that is one of the most difficult to trade in. Buying and selling takes place in telephone conversations and over e-mails, with sellers routinely waiting three weeks to settle a transaction, as opposed to just days for high-yield bonds.
- Alarm Raised by Plan to Ease Credit Norms on U.S. Parent Loans. Parents whose financial standing disqualify them from most loans may have an easier time borrowing to pay their children’s college costs under a U.S. government proposal to ease credit standards. The plan doesn’t sit well with consumer advocates and economists, who are sounding an alarm. The Education Department wants to look at “adverse credit” over two years instead of five and consider approving loans even if parents have delinquent credit balances, according to an agency document released this month.
- Crisis in Ukraine: Streaming Coverage.
ZeroHedge:
Business Insider:
Orlando Business Journal:
- Small business owners see increase in ugly subprime lending tactics. Small business owners are seeing more online lenders and loan brokers offering costly financing targeting troubled borrowers. Small business is the new target for subprime lending after Congress stepped in with the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and new laws to protect individual borrowers. It won't be surprising to see some of those protections eventually expanded to include small business owners.
- The Left's Health Care Paradise. For the left, the Department of Veterans Affairs is how health care is ideally supposed to work. No insurance companies, no private doctors, no competition — just the government and the patient.
- Economic slowdown weighs on China retailers. China’s slowing economy, a crackdown on corruption, and the rise of online shopping are increasingly eating into earnings for some of the country’s traditional retailers – hitting sales at bricks and mortar stores such as shoe shops and supermarkets. Footwear chain Belle International and supermarket operator China Resources Enterprise both blamed a drop-off in economic growth as they reported sluggish earnings this week.
- Chinese authorities advocate frugality. A nationwide campaign will be launched to encourage frugality among the public, Chinese authorities said on Tuesday. Thrift is a traditional Chinese virtue as well as a core socialist value, according to a statement issued by the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the National Development and Reform Commission. Promoting frugality is vital to improving society and the environment, and will prompt a healthy lifestyle among the public, said the statement. More efforts are needed to educate young people about frugality, it added.
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