Today's Headlines

Bloomberg: 

• Rebels Down Two Ukrainian Fighter Jets Near MH17 Site. Pro-Russian separatists shot down two Ukrainian fighter jets in the same eastern region where Malaysian Air Flight MH17 was destroyed, the government said. Rebels downed two Su-25s today over the village of Dmytrivka in the Donetsk region, a Defense Ministry spokesman, Oleksiy Dmytrashkovsky, said by phone. Another ministry spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, told reporters in Kiev the planes were at an altitude of 5,200 meters (17,000 feet) when they were brought down by a “powerful” anti-aircraft missile. The pilots ejected and their whereabouts are unknown, the ministry said on Facebook. 

• Israel Says Offensive to Continue as Kerry Seeks Truce. Israel doesn’t plan to stop its Gaza Strip offensive as long as the Palestinian territory’s Hamas rulers continue to pose a threat, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Israel in pursuit of an elusive truce deal. “There is no reason to stop here if Hamas continues to threaten, continues to fire,” Livni, her country’s former chief negotiator with the Palestinians, told Israel Radio. She said Israel may be headed toward an ongoing offensive “whose objective is not to contain the threat, but to disarm terror organizations, including Hamas.” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told soldiers to prepare for a broader ground war.  

• Europe Stocks Little Changed as Investors Weigh Earnings. 

• Junk-Bond Indigestion Burns Buyers Gorged on Record Sales. Junk-bond buyers are showing signs of indigestion after snapping up a record $361 billion of the debt at the lowest yields on record. Speculative-grade bonds from the U.S. to Europe and Asia are set to post losses this month for the first time since last August after high-yield debt funds suffered the biggest weekly withdrawal of 2014. Winoa SA, the French producer of abrasives for metalworking, scrapped a bond offering in Europe yesterday amid the turmoil. The pushback is stifling junk-bond issuance in July after an unprecedented first half of sales. Investors who piled into the debt amid extraordinary central bank stimulus and a sixth year of near-zero interest rates in the U.S. are being jolted out of complacency by intensifying risks from Ukraine to Gaza. “People who were complacent before are going to have their finger on the sell button pretty quickly if some of these situations escalate,” Marc Gross, a money manager at RS Investments in New York, which oversees $5.8 billion in fixed-income assets, said in a telephone interview.

ZeroHedge: 

• The "Gates" Are Closing: SEC Votes Through Money Market Reform.

• GM Announces Another 718K Recalls, Bringing 2014 Total To Nearly 30 Million.

• Treasury Yields Near 2014 Lows As S&P Hits Record Highs. (graph)

• IMF Cuts US GDP From 2.0% To 1.7% As US Retail Sales Forecast Slashed From 4.1% To 3.6%: Winter Blamed. (graph)

• Putin Recalls State Duma From Vacation, "Planning Something" On Ukraine Situation.

• 51 Dead As TransAsia Flight Makes Forced Landing In South China Sea.

Macro Business:

• The Chinese Overbuild is Massive. (graph)

meps: 

• STEEL PRICES UNDER NEGATIVE PRESSURE IN NORTHERN EUROPE – MEPS INTERNATIONAL LTD.