BETWEEN THE HEDGES: Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

NATO Maps Eastern Defense Plan, With European Forces in Lead. NATO will set up military headquarters and command centers stretching from the Baltic to Black seas to operate a new rapid-reaction force to defend eastern Europe against the increasingly assertive Russia. Allied defense ministers fleshed out plans for a 5,000-man force that could start deploying within 48 hours and ultimately put 30,000 troops in the field, to be run by a rotating cast of European militaries. The 28 allied countries will “ensure that we have the right forces in the right place at the right time,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday after the meeting in Brussels. “We are taking these steps in response to our changed security environment.”
Greek Bank Bonds Tumble After ECB Restricts Funding Windown. Bonds of Greek banks tumbled after the European Central Bank said it would restrict their access to funding, raising financing costs and limiting the availability of liquidity. National Bank of Greece SA and Piraeus Bank SA were the biggest decliners in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Euro Financial High Yield index, sliding as much as 6 cents on the euro. The price of credit-default swaps on Greek sovereign debt signaled a 71 percent probability of default within five years. “A very large warning shot has been fired across the Greek bows by the ECB,” said Gary Jenkins, chief credit strategist at London-based L&G Capital. “Whilst the most likely outcome is for some kind of compromise, there still remains the possibility that Greece could end up defaulting and exiting the euro zone almost by accident as much as design.”
Anthem Attack Investigators See Signs of Chinese Hackers. Investigators of Anthem Inc.’s data breach are pursuing evidence that points to Chinese state-sponsored hackers who are stealing personal information from health-care companies for purposes other than pure profit, according to three people familiar with the probe. The breach, which exposed Social Security numbers and other sensitive details of 80 million customers, is one of the biggest thefts of medical-related customer data in U.S. history. China has said in the past that it doesn’t conduct espionage through hacking.
Ukraine Lets Hryvnia Dive as IMF-Backed Move Boosts Bailout Case. Ukraine loosened its grip on the hryvnia currency, allowing it to slump by a third in a move backed by the International Monetary Fund amid talks for a new bailout. The hryvnia retreated 33 percent to a record 25 per dollar at 6:20 p.m. in Kiev. Ukraine’s dollar-denominated bonds due in July 2017 advanced to a five-day high of 53.366 cents on the dollar, reducing the yield to 41.13 percent.
Russian Inflation at Fastest Since 2008 After Currency Rout. Russian inflation topped forecasts by economists, accelerating to the fastest pace in almost seven years as the country’s worst currency crisis since 1998 ignited price growth. Consumer prices rose 15 percent in January from a year earlier, compared with 11.4 percent in December, the Federal Statistics Service in Moscow said today in an e-mailed statement. That exceeded the median estimate of 15 economists in a Bloomberg survey for 13.5 percent. Prices jumped 3.9 percent from the previous month.
Longtime Sberbank Champion Says Sell as Crisis Escalates. After more than five years of advising clients to buy OAO Sberbank, Renaissance Capital is turning bearish on Russia’s biggest lender, saying a spiraling economic crisis will cut margins and increase risks.
Boko Haram’s Widening Raids Entangle Regional Nations in War. The Nigerian militant group Boko Haram’s latest attack in neighboring Cameroon killed as many as 81 people and deepened the engagement of armies from the region to halt the Islamists’ drive to establish a self-styled caliphate. Gunmen attacked the northern Cameroonian town of Fotokol early Wednesday, just a day after Chadian forces operating in Nigerian territory drove militants out of the border town of Gamboru, about 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) away. Local resident Tijjani Abba Kuli said by phone Thursday from Fotokol that the militants killed at least 81 people.
Indonesia’s Economy Shrank Last Quarter on Commodities Slump. Indonesia’s economy shrank last quarter from the previous three months, capping the weakest year since at least the global financial crisis, on falling commodity prices and cooling investment. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy shrank 2.06 percent last quarter from the previous three months, when it expanded a revised 3.16 percent, the statistics bureau said in Jakarta on Thursday. It grew 5.02 percent in 2014, from a revised 5.58 percent pace the previous year.
Denmark Cuts Key Deposit Rate to Minus 0.75% to Save Peg. Denmark’s central bank cut its benchmark rate for a fourth time this year as it steps up efforts to fight back capital flows that threaten to strengthen the krone beyond the confines of its euro peg. The central bank lowered the deposit rate to minus 0.75 percent from minus 0.5 percent, it said today. It left its lending rate at 0.05 percent.
Stocks in Europe closed at their highest level in more than seven years. Greek shares fell amid concern over talks between the nation’s government and European leaders. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.1 percent to 372.51 at the close of trading, erasing intraday losses of as much as 0.6 percent as energy shares advanced.
Tenacious Oil Bulls Put $4 Billion in ETFs on Rebound Bet. Oil investors are still betting on a rebound after being proved wrong since October. They’ve poured more than $4 billion into oil exchange-traded products in the past four months even as prices tumbled 47 percent. That included the $1.99 billion added in January, the biggest monthly inflow in six years.
Pfizer(PFE) Flexes Muscle With Priciest Purchase of Decade. Pfizer Inc. is proving that when it sees something it wants, it’s willing to pay up. The company is buying injectable-medicine maker Hospira Inc. for about $17 billion, or $90 a share, a price that Hospira’s stock has never come close to on its own. In turn, Pfizer gains a steadily growing business to tack onto its established drugs unit that it has discussed spinning off.

Wall Street Journal:

U.S. Kerry Visits Ukraine, French, German Leaders to Follow in Bid to End Violence. Moscow Warns Any Military Aid Will be Seen As Threat to Russian Security. The diplomatic scramble to calm the conflict in eastern Ukraine entered a new, urgent phase Thursday as Western leaders descended on Kiev, while Moscow warned that any military aid to the country would be seen as a threat to Russian security. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kiev and repeated Western demands that Russian-backed separatists pull back their fighters and arms. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande were due to arrive later in the day on an emergency trip of their own, and to travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
Germany Cool on Greek Push for Bridge Program. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis Meets With German Counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble in Berlin. Germany on Thursday dismissed Greece’s request for bridge funding that would give it three months to negotiate new bailout terms, insisting that the newly-elected government implement the conditions tied to its agreed program. “We agreed to disagree,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble told a joint news conference with his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, after the two met in Berlin on Thursday morning.

CNBC:

Weatherford(WFT) to cut 5,000 jobs as it fights oil slump. Weatherford International plans to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, by the end of the first quarter as the oil services company tries to save costs amid sinking oil prices and budget cuts.
Oil heading for $30, currency war coming: Analysts. (video)
What Anthem breach victims need to do now. (video) Repercussions from some data breaches are easily remedied, but victims of insurance company Anthem's breach will have to remain vigilant against fraud for the rest of their lives.

ZeroHedge:

Business Insider:

Financial Times:

Debt mountains spark fears of another crisis. The world is awash with more debt than before the global financial crisis erupted in 2007, with China’s debt relative to its economic size now exceeding US levels, according to a report. Global debt has increased by $57tn since 2007 to almost $200tn — far outpacing economic growth, calculates McKinsey & Co, the consultancy. As a share of gross domestic product, debt has risen from 270 per cent to 286 per cent.

Telegraph:

Europe could be torn apart by the wrong sort of Eurosceptics. In Greece, France, Spain – and increasingly in Italy – populist parties have emerged as the greatest internal threat faced by the European Union since its inception.
European Central Bank's move to cut Greek bank funding puts pressure on debt deal. Stocks plummet and Greek bond yields soar as Greece's finance minister pleads for time and financial assistance from the troika.

N-TV:

Greece Must Respect Agreements, Germany's Brinkhaus Tells N-TV. Greek govt must respect rules of aid agreements signed by its predecessors, Ralph Brinkhaus, finance spokesman in parliament for Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, says. Agreeing to rule changes for Greece would prompt people in other euro region countries that got aid to resist repayments. "We can't apply double standards, we can't say some have to repay everything, some have to stick to all the reforms, while others are getting relief," he said.

The Straits Times:

ISIS has built near-impregnable base and mass appear: New book.

ISIS has built near-impregnable base and mass appeal: New book - See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/europe/story/isis-has-built-near-impregnable-base-and-mass-appeal-new-book-20150205#sthash.TSyXsl7s.dpuf

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Thursday, February 05, 2015

Today's Headlines

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