- Euro’s Reserve Status Jeopardized as Central Banks Dump Holdings. Quantitative easing may be helping Europe achieve its economic targets, but it’s also undermining the long-term viability of the euro by tarnishing its allure as a global reserve currency. Central banks cut their euro holdings by the most on record last year in anticipation of losses tied to unprecedented stimulus. The euro now accounts for just 22 percent of worldwide reserves, down from 28 percent before the region’s debt crisis five years ago, while dollar and yen holdings have both climbed, the latest data from the International Monetary Fund show.
- Any Greece Deal Signals ‘Kicking the Can’: Craig. (video)
- European Stocks Extend Record for Best Weekly Gain Since January. European stocks extended an all-time high, posting their biggest weekly gain since January. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 0.9 percent to 412.93 at the close of trading in London. It has climbed 3.8 percent in a holiday-shortened week.
- Iron Ore Aid in China Will Prolong Global Glut, Fitch Says. Policies to help sustain iron ore production in China will only prolong a global surplus, according to Fitch Ratings Ltd., which said the government’s move this week to cut miners’ taxes will have limited impact as prices sink.
- VIX Finds Comfort Zone as Fed Soothes Investors’ Profits Anxiety. Investors are facing the prospects of declining corporate earnings, slower economic growth and higher interest rates. Yet a gauge of market volatility is showing a level of comfort not felt in almost two years. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, which is derived from the price of hedges on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, closed Thursday more than 10 percent below its 10-day, 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Before March, the gauge of U.S. equity trader anxiety hadn’t fallen that much since July 2013, data compiled by Sundial Capital Research Inc. show.
- Blackstone(BX) Goes on Biggest Real Estate Spree Since Boom. Blackstone Group LP cemented its position as the world’s biggest private-equity investor in real estate with a global buying spree that includes General Electric Co. assets and a California-based shopping-center owner. The agreement to buy GE real estate assets valued at $23 billion in a joint deal with Wells Fargo & Co. is the largest real estate transaction since the financial crisis and among the biggest for New York-based Blackstone, whose purchases include the record $39 billion acquisition of Equity Office Properties Trust in 2007 and the $26 billion takeover of Hilton Worldwide Inc. the same year.
- U.S. States Aren't Prepared for the Next Fiscal Shock. U.S. states, still grappling with the lingering effects of the longest recession since the 1930s, are even more vulnerable to another fiscal shock. The governments have a little more than half the reserves they’d stashed away before the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009, according to a report last month by Pew Charitable Trusts. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Arkansas have saved the least.
- Fed’s Lacker Favors June Liftoff Even as Recent Data Weak. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said he continues to favor a first interest rate increase in June because recent soft readings on the economy will probably prove temporary. “Readings on some indicators have been unexpectedly weak in recent weeks, some of which may be attributable to unseasonably adverse weather,” Lacker, who votes on monetary policy this year, said in Sarasota, Florida, on Friday. “It’s too soon say how much, however, and the more prudent approach is to look through very short-term fluctuations.” “I expect that, unless incoming economic reports diverge substantially from projections, the case for raising rates will remain strong at the June meeting,” Lacker said to an event hosted by the Global Interdependence Center and the Financial Planning Association of the Suncoast. The comments were similar to a speech he gave on March 31.
- Liberal Democrats Try to Push Hillary Clinton Left. Some Democrats think Hillary Clinton isn’t liberal enough, posing a challenge to her as she prepares for a presidential campaign.
- Moody's downgrades GE debt after news to exit GE Capital, buy back $50 bln of shares.
- Leading indicators signal a market top.
ZeroHedge:
- Iran Unveils "Suicide Drones" Amid Nuclear Deal Talks.
- Greece Releases Graphic Footage From Nazi Occupation, Ups WWII Reparations Pressure. (video)
- How GE Will Fund The Largest Stock Buyback In History.
- Auto Import Prices Tumble Most On Record As Import Prices Plunge Most Since Financial Crisis. (graph)
- The Apple(AAPL) Watch was 'largely sold out' in just 10 minutes.
- It's official: Michael Kors(KORS) isn't cool anymore.
- US oil rig count keeps collapsing, falls to lowest since December 2010. (graph)
- Russia just held a military exercise in a 'breakaway republic' in eastern Europe.
- Here are the political leanings of executives and employees at the biggest US companies.
- Iran's supreme leader just gave a speech that could put a nuclear deal out of reach.
- China Is Said to Use Powerful New Weapon to Censor Internet. Late last month, China began flooding American websites with a barrage of Internet traffic in an apparent effort to take out services that allow China’s Internet users to view websites otherwise blocked in the country. Initial security reports suggested that China had crippled the services by exploiting its own Internet filter — known as the Great Firewall — to redirect overwhelming amounts of traffic to its targets. Now, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Toronto say China did not use the Great Firewall after all, but rather a powerful new weapon that they are calling the Great Cannon.
- QE may not have been worth the costs. Even when the limits of these policies become evident, the solution appears more of the same rather than calls for a different approach. A new report from Swiss Re is changing that. The report calculates that US savers alone have lost $470bn in interest rate income — and that is net of lower debt costs. Central bank policies involve “a whole host of unintended consequences; asset price bubbles, an impaired credit intermediation process and increasing economic inequality are just a few,” the report warns.
- Yazidi sex slaves 'gang-raped in public' by Isis fighters, harrowing accounts reveal. Yazidi women released by Isis this week were gang-raped in public by fighters and tortured by their captors, according to distressing accounts of their ordeals. Hundreds of women and children were abducted from the town of Sinjar, in northern Iraq, and held hostage by Isis for over eight months. Some were sold to fighters as sex slaves or given as ‘prizes’. Many were beaten and forced to convert to Islam. "If you come and sit with the girls you will find different stories from girl to girl. A lot of them have been sold to Isis fighters, they have been raped in [...] public, and by more than two or three people at a time," he told the International Business Times. "They were tortured, beaten and subject to any type of violence."
- Li Says China's Economy Faces Increasing Downward Pressure. Premier Li Keqiang says China's northeastern region faces bigger economic downward pressure than nationwide, citing comments made by Li at a seminar.
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