Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:    

• Lagarde Won’t Give Support to Greece Missing IMF Payment. (video) International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde warned that she wouldn’t let Greece skip a debt payment to the lender, shutting down a potential avenue to buy the Greek government some financial leeway. “We never had an advanced economy actually asking for that kind of thing, delayed payment,” Lagarde said in an interview Thursday in Washington with Bloomberg Television. “And I very much hope that this is not the case with Greece. I would certainly, for myself, not support it.”
• Greek Pressure Builds as Bond Yields Climb to Highest Since 2012. (video) Greece’s bonds tumbled, pushing 10-year yields to the highest in more than two years, as pressure mounted on the southern European nation to secure funding or risk a possible default. The price of Greece’s three-year notes dropped the most since February and Greek corporate bonds also slumped. Credit-default swaps suggested there was a 79 percent chance of the country being unable to repay its debt in five years.
• Putin Says People in Rebel Ukraine Areas Will Decide Their Fate. The future of rebel-held areas of eastern Ukraine will be decided by the people who live there, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. A peace agreement negotiated in Minsk, Belarus, to end the yearlong conflict offers a chance to rebuild relations between the government in Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region, Putin said. “In the end, of course, the right to have the final word on who, how and with whom they want to live, under what conditions, should belong to the people living on those territories,” Putin said at his annual televised call-in program in Moscow on Thursday. “To a great extent, this will depend on the flexibility and the political wisdom of the Kiev leadership.”
• ECB Rues Limits of Stimulus as IMF Gauges Rust in Economy. As European Central Bank policy makers vaunt the success of their stimulus measures so far, they remain as aware as ever of its limits. Fresh from their latest policy meeting in Frankfurt on Wednesday, euro-zone officials are now headed for Washington, where the International Monetary Fund singled out the currency bloc in an assessment last week on the depletion of growth potential across the world. The IMF and the ECB concur that decay from two recessions since 2008, one debt crisis and the lack of reforms to repair the damage risk acting as a brake on inflation that monetary stimulus can’t overcome.
• American-Made Junk CLOs Now Being Served in Yield-Starved Japan. Bankers have a proposition for Japanese investors: Why don’t you put your money into bundles of junk-rated U.S. loans? It’ll be a classic win-win, as the thinking goes. For Japanese institutions tired of decade after decade of paltry returns on Japanese government debt, they’ll earn higher yields; and for the riskiest U.S. companies, they’ll get access to a cheaper source of financing. What could possibly go wrong?
• European Stocks Fall as Germany, Italy, Portugal Lead Declines. European stocks fell the most in three weeks, with German, Italian and Portuguese gauges leading declines. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.8 percent to 410.93 at the close of trading in London.
• Saudi Arabia Adds Half a Bakken to Oil Market in a Month. Saudi Arabia boosted crude production to the highest in three decades in March, with a surge equal to half the daily output of the Bakken formation in North Dakota. The kingdom boosted daily crude output by 658,800 barrels in March to an average of 10.294 million, according to data the country communicated to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ secretariat in Vienna. The Bakken formation, among the fastest-growing shale oil regions in the U.S., pumped 1.1 million barrels a day in February, according to data from the North Dakota Industrial Commission.
• Bets on September Fed rate hike surge in latest economist survey. Most economists now expect the Federal Reserve's first rate hike in almost a decade to come at its late-summer meeting, in a ballroom-worthy swing from their outlook last month. The share of economists projecting the Fed will wait until September more than doubled to 71 percent in the latest Bloomberg survey, from 32 percent last month. Team June shrank to 12 percent from 45 percent in March. The camp calling for a July rate hike fell to 5 percent from 12 percent. 
• Etsy Doubles in Debut, Leading Gains Among Trio of New Listings. The U.S. IPO market got a shot in the arm Thursday after a high-frequency trader, a handicrafts marketplace, and a party-supply retailer all jumped in their trading debuts. Etsy Inc., the website for artisans, logged the biggest gain, surging 94 percent in its first trade after it raised $267 million in its initial public offering. Virtu Financial Inc. gained 21 percent as did retailer Party City Holdco Inc.

ZeroHedge:

• Meanwhile, In Greece — Live Feed. (video)
• Spot The Common Theme: Prostitution Scandals, Kickbacks And Money Laundering.
• Citadel Head Bond Trader (And TBAC Member) "Leaves" After Losing $1 Billion.
• Contagion Arrives: European Peripheral Bond Risk Soars. (graph)
• Virtu Explains Why It Lost Money On Just One Trading Day In 6 Years. (graph)
• 175,846,629,768 Reasons Why Ben Bernanke Joined Citadel. (graph)
• Fed's Fischer Says Fed Can't Be "On Hold For Ever", Spooks Bonds & Bullion. (graph)
• Philly Fed Limps Higher After "Weather" Crash, New Orders Tumble To 2 Year Lows. (graph)
• Housing Starts And Permits Miss Badly As "Warm Weather" Rebound Fails To Materialize. (graph)
• Goldman Reports Best Quarter In Four Years, "Average" Employee Paid $381,948. (graph)

Business Insider:

• Corporate bankruptcies are on the rise in America.
• The strongest BRIC is starting to crumble.
• It seems Hillary Clinton has already flip-flopped on 2 major issues. 

Reuters:

• TSMC sees Q2 sales dip after key client loses business. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) (2330.TW) (TSM.N) on Thursday said revenue is likely to fall in the second quarter from the first, due in part to the loss of business at one of its key customers. The world's largest contract chip manufacturer expects a decline of 7 percent to 8 percent in April-June. In the three months prior, revenue was flat on quarter but grew 50 percent on year, pushing net profit beyond analyst estimates.

Handelsblatt:

• ECB QE Crowding Insurers Out, Munich Re CEO Says. Insurers, pension funds and other investors are being crowded out of the market by the ECB, Munich Re CEO Nikolaus von Bomhard says in an interview. Risk of collateral damage from ECB spending program outweighs possible positive effects, he said.

Bild:

• Merkel Ally Urges 'Open Discussion' on Greek Euro Exit. Euro region govts should have an "open discussion about a Plan B for Greece, be it Grexit, the introduction of a parallel currency or another way," Kurt Lauk, head of the economic council of Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party, says.