Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Tsipras Tells Putin EU Sanctions on Russia Are Economic War. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said they want to restore ties between their countries amid signs of a schism among some European Union states on whether to maintain sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. “Greece is a sovereign country with unalienable rights,” Tsipras said after meeting with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday. The Greek premier said he disagrees with the logic of sanctions, which he described as “an economic war,” and called for “a new spring in ties between our countries.”
• Merkel Ally Says Greece Is Free to Make Russian ‘Mistake’. A party ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said raising dependence on Russia is Greece’s “mistake” to make, though there’s no reason to condemn any loan by the Kremlin to Europe’s most-indebted state. Norbert Roettgen, a lawmaker with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union who is chairman of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, commented in a phone interview as Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras seeks closer ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a three-day visit to Moscow.
• Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Convicted of 2013 Attack on Boston Marathon. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of carrying out the biggest terror attack on U.S. soil since 2001, as jurors in the Boston Marathon bombing case now turn to the more difficult task of deciding whether he should die.
• While the Shanghai Stock Market Keeps Surging, Some Investors Are Getting Out. Wednesday trading brought some puzzling signals from China’s equity markets. On the one hand, the Shanghai Composite Index briefly exceeded the psychologically important 4,000 threshold, before closing at 3994.81 for the day. On the other hand, Chinese mainland investors used their entire 10.5 billion yuan daily quota to shift funds to Hong Kong. 
• Russian Car Sales Have Utterly Collapsed. (graph) Consumer demand has disappeared. 
• German Factory Orders Drop for Second Month. German factory orders unexpectedly fell for a second month in February in a sign Europe’s largest economy is still prone to risks. Orders, adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, fell 0.9 percent after a revised decline of 2.6 percent in January, data from the Economy Ministry in Berlin showed on Wednesday. The typically volatile number compares with a median estimate of a 1.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg survey. Orders slid 1.3 percent from a year earlier.
• Europe Stocks Are Little Changed After Rising Above Record Close. European stocks, which surpassed a record close earlier, pared gains as oil extended losses. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added less than 0.1 percent to 404.66 at the close of trading. It rose as much as 0.4 percent to 405.78 intraday, surpassing the March 2000 level.
• Fed Officials Divided Over June Liftoff, FOMC Minutes Show. Federal Reserve policy makers last month were split over whether they would raise interest rates in June, a debate that occurred before recent disappointing payroll figures, minutes of their most recent policy meeting showed. “Several participants judged that the economic data and outlook were likely to warrant beginning normalization at the June meeting,” according to minutes of the March 17-18 Federal Open Market Committee session released Wednesday in Washington.

Wall Street Journal: 

• Post-Crisis Risk Casts a Darkening Shadow. Regulators’ banking safeguards drive an increasing amount of financial activity away from conventional venues. Squeezing risk out of the economy can be like pressing down on a water bed: The risk often re-emerges elsewhere. So it goes with efforts to make the financial system safer since the financial crisis. Officials have forced banks to bulk up their capital buffers, ditch dangerous lines of business and pay more than $100 billion in penalties for bad behavior. As a result, risky...
• China to Build Pipeline From Iran to Pakistan. Long-thwarted project gets go-ahead as Islamabad anticipates lifting of sanctions on Iran.

CNBC:

• Cashin: This was a one-two punch for the markets. (video) 
• AT&T(T) data breaches revealed: 280K US customers exposed.

ZeroHedge: 

• Iran Enters Hornets Nest: Parks Two Warships Off Yemen Coast Immediately Next To Two US Aircraft Carriers.
• Japan Shocked To Find Abenomics Is Destroying Its Middle Class.
• Cushing Storage Around 90% Full As Inventories Surge Most In 14 Years, Crude Plunges. (graph)
• Bernanke Has The Courage To Call His Upcoming Memoir The "Courage To Act".
• The Shell-BG Megadeal: All You Need To Know, And Why The Initial Response Is Not Enthusiastic.
• Putin And Tsipras Are Meeting: Here Are The Main Highlights.
• Swiss Government Becomes First Ever To Issue 10Y Debt At A Negative Yield. (graph)
• FOMC Minutes Expose World Weary, Un-Patient, Dow-Data-Dependent Fed.

Business Insider: 

• Crude oil is tanking. (graph)
• The Apple(AAPL) Watch reviews are (quietly) brutal.
• Shares of drugmaker Perrigo(PRGO) are going insane after a buyout offer from Mylan(MYL).
• US general: Russian long-range bombers are 'messaging' the US with provocative flights.
• Greece has a major debt repayment to make in the next 24 hours and the situation is looking desperate. 
• This chart shows why everyone is scared about China's economy.

Telegraph: 

• Exhausted world stuck in permanent stagnation warns IMF. The global economy is acutely vulnerable to a fresh recession with debt ratios at record highs. The authorities have already used up most of their ammunition. 
• Risky mortgages are back on the rise. Bank of England survey shows increase in willingness to lend more than 90pc of a home's value.