Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Weapons Buildup by Ukraine Rebels Raises Tensions, Klimkin Says. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said that a buildup in arms supplies to pro-Russian separatists risks worsening tensions in the country’s easternmost regions, “We are seeing more and more weapons, including heavy weaponry, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, more possibilities for terrorists training,” Klimkin said in an interview in New York Wednesday. “There is an extremely high number of armed people there, those who must be disarmed according to the Minsk agreements. All that means additional risks.” 
• Iglesias Says EU Risking Right-Wing Backlash With Greek Pressure. (video) The euro area risks fueling extremist nationalist groups with its hard-line approach to negotiations with Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, according to the Greek premier’s Spanish ally, Pablo Iglesias. If Greeks don’t win relief from the euro area’s austerity program through Tsipras’s plan to write down the country’s debts and boost government spending, they may embrace the Golden Dawn party instead, according to Iglesias, who leads the Spanish anti-austerity group Podemos and is a lawmaker in the European Parliament.
• German Bonds Drop for Second Day After Region’s $61 Billion Loss. German government bonds declined, extending a selloff from Wednesday that wiped about 55 billion euros ($62 billion) off the value of euro-area debt. The region’s benchmark yields climbed to the highest level in seven weeks, while those of French five-year debt touched their highest since January. Signs that traders rushed to get out of positions amplified the selloff after some money managers said they were considering betting against German debt. Others, including State Street Global Advisors, said this didn’t mark the end of a rally in the region’s debt. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc said it was still bullish on the securities.
• Divergent: China's Splintering Growth. From Shanxi to Hainan, China's provincial growth rates are splintering as the world's second-largest economy slows. Plagued by overcapacity and a property slowdown, the industrial northeastern Liaoning province expanded just 1.9 percent from a year earlier, according to a report by 21st Century Business Herald. Nearby Heilongjiang and Jilin are the fourth and fifth slowest growing regions as China's rust belt gets rustier. Northern Shanxi's dependence on coal weighted its growth to 2.5 percent, the second slowest. It's also one of the hardest hit by President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign, with multiple government officials investigated. As college students and pensioners queue for hours to open share-trading accounts, the country's financial capital of Shanghai benefited from the stock market's boom. Financial services contributed 16.6 percent to the city's economy in the first quarter -- higher than the most recent numbers in New York City, Hong Kong and Singapore.
• China Shipbuilding Sector Set to Contract, Yangzijiang Says. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest privately owned shipyard, expects the country’s shipbuilding industry to shrink significantly in the next three years, reversing almost a decade of boom. In three years time, there may be only 30 “active” shipyards in China, from more than 100 now, Chairman Ren Yuanlin said Thursday in a news briefing in Singapore, where the company’s stock is traded. “There will be mergers and acquisitions as well as closures as the shipbuilding industry undergoes restructuring,” Ren said. The shipping sector doesn’t look “optimistic” at the moment, he said. 
• UBS' Richest Clients Still Love Dollar on September Fed Bet. UBS Group AG’s wealthiest clients are still buying dollars even as the most popular trade in the foreign-exchange market has fallen out of favor, according to the world’s largest private bank. UBS expects the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate increase since 2006 to come in September after policy makers played down the significance of the economy’s slowdown in the first quarter, said Simon Smiles, chief investment officer for ultra-high-net-worth individuals in Zurich.
• Biggest Wealth Fund Joins Bears in Bet Europe Bonds Fade. Norway’s $900 billion sovereign wealth fund is joining Janus Capital’s Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach of Doubleline Capital in betting Europe’s historic bond rally is coming to an end. Yngve Slyngstad, the manager of the Oslo-based fund which on Wednesday reported a record investment return, said he is weighting a 2.5 trillion-krone ($328 billion) bond portfolio to shorter maturities, meaning it will outperform when rates rise. 
• Europe Stocks Fall, Posting April Drop, on Fed Rate-Rise Concern. A third day of declines pushed European stocks to their first monthly drop of the year, as the Federal Reserve left open the prospect of interest-rate increases even amid weak U.S. growth. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.4 percent to 395.79 at the close of trading, after earlier losing as much as 1 percent.
• Saudi Arabia Is Burning Through Its Foreign Reserves at a Record Pace. Saudi Arabia is burning through foreign reserves at a record pace as the largesse of the new king and regional turmoil ratchet up pressure on public finances already hurt by the oil price slump. The kingdom spent $36 billion of the central bank’s net foreign assets -- about 5 percent of the total -- in February and March, the biggest two-month drop on record, data released this week show.

ZeroHedge: 

• The Swiss National Bank Is Long $100 Billion In Stocks, Reports Record Loss.
• Dollar Suffers Worst Month In 4 Years - Ends Record Streak Of Gains. (graph)
• 71% Of Wall Street Bankers Admit They Are Too Big To Fail (And Underpaid).
• Punk Q1 GDP Wasn't Surprising: It Extends A 60-Year Trend Of Exploding Money And Imploding Growth. (graph)
• Bund Sell-Off: It's The Supply Stupid.
• NY Fed Head Of Banking Supervision, And Person Who Handed Over Billions In AIG Profits To Goldman, Resigns.
• Billionaire Hypocrisy: George Soros May Owe $7 Billion In Taxes.
• Chicago PMI Bounces. (graph)
• Bunds & Bullion Bloodbath'd. (graph)
• When The Herd Turns.
• No Growth In Personal Income Pushes Savings Rate To Lowest In 2015; Spending Misses Expectations.
• The Last Time Initial Jobless Claims Were This Low Was The Peak Of The Dot-Com Bubble. (graph)

Business Insider:

• The people who nailed the horrific Q1 GDP number have bad news about Q2.
• Hillary Clinton's charity empire hid way more foreign donations than anyone realized.
• Top American NATO commander: We don't know what Putin is thinking or what he'll do next.

Telegraph:

• Defiant Greeks draw battle lines as Grexit crisis deepens. Athens Leftist government risks "unprecedented economic contraction" as it insists it will not cross "red lines" on its electoral promises.