Monday, June 29, 2015

Monday Watch

Posted by Gary .....at 12:48 AM
Today's Headlines 
Bloomberg: 
  • Greece Shuts Banks to Avert Collapse After ECB Freezes Support. Greece will shut its banks Monday to avert a financial collapse after the European Central Bank froze emergency loans to the nation’s lenders. Piraeus Bank SA Chief Executive Officer Anthimos Thomopoulos disclosed the decision to reporters after a meeting of the government’s financial-stability panel on Sunday. As he left the same session, Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said an announcement would be made after a Cabinet meeting due to start imminently in Athens. Banks will remain shut until at least after a July 5 referendum called by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on whether to accept austerity in exchange for a European bailout, Kathemerini newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
  • Euro Faces Existential Threat as Greece’s Membership in Jeopardy. Three years after Mario Draghi pledged to do whatever it took to save the euro, the breakdown in the Greek rescue talks is calling into question the integrity of the entire currency union. While Greece accounts for less than 2 percent of the euro zone’s output, its exit would hurl the bloc into unknown territory by setting a precedent for other nations to reconsider membership. The euro dropped 1.4 percent to $1.1011 as of 5:44 a.m. in Tokyo on Monday.
  • IMF Won’t Help Greece If Payment Missed, Lagarde Says. International Monetary Fund officials, stung by the breakdown of negotiations over a new European bailout package for Greece, won’t provide further aid if the Greeks miss a payment due to the IMF on June 30, Managing Director Christine Lagarde said. Lagarde, in an interview with the BBC, also said a referendum scheduled in Greece for July 5 will be asking voters to weigh creditors’ proposals that are no longer under consideration. 
  • Closing Greek Stock Exchange Puts Focus on ETFs Without Prices. Shutting down the Greek market has trained attention on exchange-traded funds tracking its stocks, adding an element of speculation to their prices as long as the Athens bourse is closed. In the U.S., owners of the Global X FTSE Greece 20 ETF will have less information in deciding how much the security is worth, while in Europe the Lyxor ETF FTSE Athex 20 may see added volatility.
  • Hidden Debt Risks Rise as Chinese Developers Scrap Bond Promises. China’s developers are scrapping safeguards written into their bonds, sparking concern that they are attempting to hide rising debt loads after a landmark default. Five developers this year have loosened or are trying to relax financing limits and make it easier to enter joint ventures that can move liabilities off their balance sheets. That’s up from three in the same period of 2014. Junk-rated issuers including Agile Property Holdings Ltd. and Modern Land China Co. have sought to trim protections for overseas investors, dragging them to the weakest since 2011, according to Moody’s Investors Service.
  • The $8 Trillion Penny Stock: China’s Market of Boom-Bust-Repeat. It looks like the price chart of an over-the-counter penny stock: dizzying gains, abrupt U-turns, harrowing declines. But this is no obscure security from the rough-and-tumble fringes of Wall Street. It’s China’s Shanghai Composite Index, the yardstick for an $8.1 trillion equity market -- the world’s largest after the U.S. -- where extreme volatility is becoming the norm. Fueled by record amounts of borrowed money and the whims of more than 80 million individual investors, swings in the Shanghai Composite have climbed to the highest levels since 2008. They’re bigger than every other benchmark index worldwide after Greece, along with a quarter of the 100 most-traded penny stocks on U.S. bourses, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “You’d think you wouldn’t see this volatility in such a large equity benchmark,” Ankur Patel, the chief investment officer at R-Squared Macro Management LLC, said by phone from Birmingham, Alabama. “The flows in and out have been so substantial and it’s been driven by retail investors. Those are the same characteristics you see in penny stocks.”
  • China’s Auditor Says State Firms Falsified Revenue and Profit. Some of China’s biggest state firms were found to have falsified revenue and profits, while some state lenders doled out loans to unqualified borrowers, the nation’s auditor said amid an intensifying crackdown on corruption. Fourteen state-owned companies, including State Grid Corp., Cosco Group and China Southern Power Grid Co., falsified 29.8 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) in revenue and 19.4 billion yuan in profits, the National Audit Office said in a statement on its website Sunday. The office issued its 2014 work report Sunday, along with several statements and audit reports for individual companies.
  • Japan Industrial Production Slumps in May, Denting Recovery. Japan’s industrial production dropped more than forecast in May, sapping a recovery in the world’s third-largest economy. Output fell 2.2 percent from April, when it increased 1.2 percent, the trade ministry said on Monday. Economists had forecast a 0.8 percent decline.
  • BIS Warns of Increasing Risk of Liquidity Trap in Bond Markets. Global bond markets face the risk of a “liquidity illusion” because holdings are becoming concentrated in the hands of fund managers, according to the Bank for International Settlements. The top 20 managers account for 40 percent of all assets as dealers reduce inventories, BIS economists wrote in their annual report. Assets under management more than doubled in about a decade to $75 trillion in 2013. Investors are becoming more influential in credit markets as banks reduce bond holdings to meet regulations introduced since the financial crisis. That shift is making markets more homogeneous, increasing the risk that liquidity will vanish in a selloff. 
  • Treasuries Surge With Aussie, Japanese Bonds Amid Greece Turmoil. The benchmark Treasury 10-year yield dropped 15 basis points to 2.32 percent as of 11:54 a.m. in Tokyo, Bloomberg Bond Trader data show. The 2.125 percent note due in May 2025 climbed 1 10/32 to 98 9/32. Yields on similar-maturity Australian notes dropped 11 basis points to 2.95 percent and those on Japanese securities of the same tenor declined three basis points to 0.44 percent.
  • Leu, Forint Lead Emerging Currencies Lower on Greece Turmoil. Emerging-market currencies fell the most in a month as demand for riskier assets weakened amid concern Greece’s possible exit from the euro zone will lead to contagion. A Bloomberg gauge of the most-traded developing-nation currencies declined 0.6 percent as of 11 a.m. in Hong Kong, set for its lowest close since March 19.
  • Mideast Stocks Sink on Fear Attacks May Spread in Gulf Nations. Stocks in Dubai, the Middle East’s commercial hub, led regional declines on concern militants could target other Arab Gulf nations after Kuwait’s deadliest attack in decades killed 27 people. The DFM General Index dropped 2.2 percent, the most since June 11, to 4,055.97 at the 2 p.m. close in the emirate. Kuwait’s SE Price Index slipped 0.2 percent to the lowest since December. More than 200 people were wounded when a bomb ripped through a Shiite mosque in the country, which shares borders with Iraq and Saudi Arabia. 
  • China’s Stocks Extend Rout as Shanghai Index Set for Bear Market. China’s stocks sank in volatile trade, with the benchmark index poised to enter a bear market, as an interest-rate cut over the weekend failed to stem the biggest nation’s rout since 1996. The Shanghai Composite Index tumbled 3.8 percent to 4,035.48 at the morning break, taking declines from its June 12 peak to more than 20 percent. A gauge of technology stocks sank 8 percent Monday to lead declines among industry groups. The Shanghai index’s 10-day volatility reading jumped to the highest level since 2008. The Shenzhen Composite Index tumbled 5.9 percent to its lowest level since May 8, taking its three-day loss to 17 percent. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropped 3.1 percent at 11:31 a.m. local time, and the Hang Seng Index fell 2.4 percent.
  • Asian Stocks Fall as Greece Fears Spur Flight to Safer Assets. Asian stocks tumbled as investors sought shelter in haven assets while they weighed a possible Greek exit from the euro zone. Shares in Shanghai sank even after the central bank cut interest rates. Japan’s Topix index dropped 1.7 percent as the yen jumped 0.8 percent against the dollar and 2.1 percent versus the euro. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 1.6 percent to 145.43 as of 11:37 a.m. in Hong Kong, as more than 20 shares fell for each that rose. The Shanghai Composite Index slumped 3.8 percent after earlier rising 2.5 percent.
  • Iron Seen Below $40 by Capital Economics on Sharp Move Down. Iron ore may tumble into the $30s a metric ton in the second half as surging low-cost supplies from the world’s biggest producers swamp the market, expanding a glut, according to Capital Economics Ltd. The surplus will become more evident in the next six months, Caroline Bain, senior commodities economist in London, said in an interview. Higher volumes from Australia and Brazil will spur the renewed slump even as stimulus spending in China boosts steel demand, Bain said, forecasting that the raw material will end the year at $45.
  • Gold Climbs on Haven Demand as Greece Risks Exit From Euro Zone. Gold rose with silver as Greece shut banks and imposed capital controls, boosting demand for haven assets amid concern that the country’s euro membership is in jeopardy. Bullion for immediate delivery rallied as much as 1.1 percent to $1,188.23 an ounce and was at $1,182.76 at 11:07 a.m. in Singapore, according to Bloomberg generic pricing. Gold for August delivery jumped 1.2 percent to $1,187.60 on the Comex and traded at $1,181.50.
  • Fed’s Dudley Says September Rate Rise Possible After Better Data. The Federal Reserve could begin raising interest rates in September if economic data continue to improve as they have in recent weeks, said William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “If the data continue to evolve in the way they have, I think September is very much in play,” Dudley said in an interview with the Financial Times conducted on Friday and published Sunday.
Wall Street Journal: 
  • Iran Wish List Led to U.S. Talks. Years of clandestine exchanges between the two countries helped build a foundation for nuclear negotiations. Iran secretly passed to the White House beginning in late 2009 the names of prisoners it wanted released from U.S. custody, part of a wish list to test President Barack Obama’s commitment to improving ties and a move that set off years of clandestine dispatches that helped open the door to nuclear negotiations. The secret messages, via an envoy sent by the Sultan of Oman, also included a request to... 
  • Assad Chemical Threat Mounts. U.S. officials see strong possibility of chemical attacks if rebels threaten Syrian regime strongholds. U.S. intelligence agencies believe there is a strong possibility the Assad regime will use chemical weapons on a large scale as part of a last-ditch effort to protect key Syrian government strongholds if Islamist fighters and other rebels try to overrun them, U.S. officials said. Analysts and policy makers have been poring over all available intelligence hoping to determine what types of chemical weapons the regime might be able to...
  • Repairing the ObamaCare Wreckage. The King v. Burwell ruling aside, the fact remains that premiums are skyrocketing and choices are shrinking. Ironically, it is the growing government centralization of health insurance at the expense of private insurance that must be addressed. The 107 million people on Medicaid or Medicare in 2013 will increase to 135 million by...
Fox News: 
  • Calls grow for probe of Clinton's private server. (video) Calls for Hillary Clinton to allow a third party to examine her private server grew louder Friday following revelations that she had withheld more than a dozen Benghazi-related emails from the State Department. "Secretary Clinton's failure to turn over all Benghazi and Libya documents is the reason why we have been calling for an independent, third party review of her server," Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., a member of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, told the Washington Examiner.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
  • RPT-Sydney's crazy housing market no mere craze. Outlandish property prices make daily headlines in Sydney - a peeling 1900s three-bed with no kitchen sink for A$2.6 million ($2 million), a parking space in Kirribili for A$120,000 - and first-time buyers have little prospect of relief. Home price growth in the harbour city is well into the double digits, fed by record low interest rates, a rapidly rising population, chronic undersupply, a tax system that pampers property investors and a stream of Asian money.
Financial Times:
  • Low rates hold back global growth, BIS warns. Ultra-low interest rates hold back global growth and fuel instability, the Bank for International Settlements has warned, as it urged central banks to move more swiftly towards normalising monetary policy. The BIS said in its annual report that monetary authorities from the US to Japan had been handed too much responsibility to steer the global recovery and that much more of the weight had to fall on governments, which were failing to pass vital structural reforms.
  • US shale equity sales slow. Share sales by US oil and gas companies have slowed sharply in recent months, in a sign of the tightening financial pressures on the industry following the fall in crude prices.
Telegraph:
  • The world is defenceless against the next financial crisis, warns BIS. Monetary policymakers have run out of room to fight the next crisis with interest rates unable to go lower, the BIS warns. The world will be unable to fight the next global financial crash as central banks have used up their ammunition trying to tackle the last crises, the Bank of International Settlements has warned. The so-called central bank of central banks launched a scatching critique of global monetary policy in its annual report. The BIS claimed that central banks have backed themselves into a corner after repeatedly cutting interest rates to shore up their economies.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung:
  • Greece Won't Get Better Deal After Referendum. Greece won't be offered a better deal after the referendum scheduled for July 5, citing German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Garbriel in an interview. Gabriel says he was "appalled" that Greeks rejected a very far-reaching offer than included a third bailout program and debt restructuring. "Mr. Tsipras wants to accept all these offeres only if Europe doesn't link them to any conditions for reforms in Greece. Europe won't be able to accept this even after a referendum," he said.
ORF TV:
  • ECB's Nowotny Sees Greece Missing June 30 Payment to IMF. Greek govt. will likely default on payment to IMF due June 30, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said in an interview. No guarantee Greece won't leave euro, he said. Tourists visiting Greece should "stock up on cash, on euro cash," he said.
Leipziger Volkszeitung:
  • Germany Faces EU80b Greek Default Loss, Lawmaker Says. German public coffers face a loss of at least EU80b from a Greek default, lawmaker Gunter Krichbaum, chairman of European Affairs Committee in lower house of parliament, says. German lawmakers may need to approve "humanitarian aid" because a Greek default may ignite unrest.
ADR Interview: 
  • Germany's Steinmeier 'Dismayed' by Tsipras Moves. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier says he's "somewhat dismayed" by recent policy steps take in Greece "and especially on the part of the prime minister." Greece faces risk of illiquidity and time is running out, he said.
La Stampa:
  • OECD's Mann Says Markets Unprepared for Possible Grexit. Asked about "worst outcome" on Greece, OECD Chief Economist Catherine Mann says financial markets aren't prepared, according to an interview. Markets moving as if there were no risks, she said.
Night Trading
  • Asian indices are -2.5% to -1.25% on average.
  • Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 117.0 +9.5 basis points.
  • Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index n/a.
  • S&P 500 futures -1.43%.
  • NASDAQ 100 futures -1.43%.

Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate 
  • (APOL)/.47
Economic Releases
10:00 am EST
  • Pending Home Sales for May are estimated to rise +1.4% versus a +3.4% gain in April.
10:30 am EST
  • Dallas Fed Manufacturing Activity for June is estimated to rise to -16.0 versus -20.8 in May.
Upcoming Splits
  • None of note
Other Potential Market Movers
  • The German retail sales report could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are sharply lower, weighed down by industrial and financial shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open lower and to maintain losses into the afternoon. The Portfolio is 25% net long heading into the week.

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