Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:     

• Tsipras Hardens Greek Stance After Collapse of Talks. (video) Greece and its creditors swapped recriminations over the breakdown of bailout talks, each side hardening its position after attempts to bridge their differences collapsed. With markets dropping, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras portrayed Greece as the torchbearer of democracy, standing firm against creditors’ demand for pension cuts. European Commission spokeswoman Annika Breidthardt said that account of the creditors’ position was a “gross misrepresentation of facts.” “One can only read political motives in the creditors’ insistence on new cuts to pensions after five years of plundering them under the memorandum,” Tsipras said in a statement to Efimerida Ton Syntakton newspaper on Monday. “We will wait patiently for the institutions to move toward realism.”
• Europe Raises Heat on Greece to Make Further Concessions. (video) European policy makers raised pressure on Greece to return to the negotiating table and make further concessions to unlock aid, as each side laid out its demands to rally support for its respective position. Stocks and the euro fell on Monday as the extent of the policy divide that remains to be resolved was laid bare after weekend talks billed by European officials as a last attempt to end the standoff broke up early.o
• Euro Risk Indicators Signal Danger as Greece Bailout Talks Fail. (graph) A gauge of how much banks expect to pay to borrow euros, known as the FRA/OIS spread, jumped to a two-year high. A measure of financial-debt risk that tracks credit-default swaps rose to the highest level since April 2014, while Greek bank bonds reached an almost two-month low. “That’s a sign of risk aversion,” said Steven Major, the global head of fixed-income research at HSBC Holdings Plc in London. “Our view remains that a compromise will be reached even though a few key dates have passed. That said, there’ll be a lot of volatility before we get there.”
• China Margin Loan Cap Leaves Leeway for Biggest Lender GF. China’s most aggressive margin lender, brokerage GF Securities Co., may have room to more than double its financing of customers’ share purchases under the securities regulator’s proposed industry cap. A plan announced Friday to limit lending to four times net capital would set a 234 billion yuan ($38 billion) ceiling for Guangzhou-based GF, based on its 58.5 billion yuan of net capital as of April 10. That compares with 103 billion yuan of lending, the most of any Chinese brokerage, as of March 31. While Chinese officials are trying to limit the risk of a stock boom turning to bust, the planned rules leave room for margin finance to keep expanding after the Shanghai Composite Index already gained more than 140 percent in a year. Brokerages are boosting their lending capacity by selling billions of dollars of stock, with Guotai Junan Securities Co. set to price a mainland share sale this week. Brokers’ rising levels of capital may be able to support as much as 4.5 trillion yuan of finance for margin trading and short selling by year end, China International Capital Corp. analysts Du Lijuan and Mao Junhua said in a note. That would be more than double the 2.2 trillion yuan of funding outstanding as of last week. Rules announced by the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Friday would also let brokers roll over clients’ margin finance contracts beyond six months. 
• Bearish Euro Bets at 2015 Low as Greece Talks Intensify. (video)
• Emerging Stocks Drop as Greece Remains at Impasse With Creditors. Emerging-market stocks fell to the lowest in 11 weeks as Chinese equities tumbled and a standoff in Greece’s talks with creditors sapped demand for riskier assets. Chinese stocks slid from a 2008 high amid concern new share sales may lure funds from existing equities. The lira dropped with Turkish equities as opposition parties balked at working with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on forming a government. The ruble rose as Russia’s central bank said inflation risks will hinder further monetary easing after cutting its key interest rate for the fourth time this year. Saudi Arabian stocks slid as the market opened to direct foreign investment. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index declined 0.9 percent to 970.81 at 12:45 p.m. in New York.
• Greek Stocks Lead Europe Markets Lower as Debt Talks Break Down. (video) Greece dragged European stocks to their lowest level on almost four months after weekend debt talks between the Mediterranean nation and its creditors broke down. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped 1.6 percent to 383.02 at the close of trading. Greece’s ASE Index dropped 4.7 percent, with Alpha Bank AE and Piraeus Bank SA tumbling at least 9 percent. Italy’s FTSE MIB Index posted the second-worst performance among western-European markets, with a 2.4 percent decline.
• Copper Declines to Three-Month Low on Chinese Demand Concern.

ZeroHedge: 

• Why Greek Pensions Have Become The Biggest Hurdle In The Bailout Negotiations.
• This Is What A Volcker Rule Loophole Looks Like. (video)
• ECB Government Debt Monetization Slows Most Since First Week Of May. (graph)
• Our Phantom Economy. (graph)
• Homebuilder Optimism Soars To 10 Year Highs Amid Rising Rates, Slumping Consumer Sentiment. (graph)
• US Industrial Production Weakest Since January 2010, Flashes Recessionary Red Flag. (graph)
• Grexit Contagion Uncontained: Peripheral Bond Risk Surges As Greek Banks Collapse. (graph)

Business Insider:  

• 67% of economists think the Fed's first rate hike happens in September.
• Cigna(CI) shares explode higher after a report Anthem wants to buy it for $175 per share.
• 'A crash is coming, and it may be terrific'.

ETF Trends:

• Investors Are Ditching Emerging Market Stock ETFs. Investors are dumping emerging market stock exchange traded funds, with global investors redeeming the most from developing stock markets since the financial crisis. For instance, the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (NYSEArca: EEM) experienced $948.2 million in outflows so far this month. According to EPFR Global data, global investors pulled $9.3 billion from stocks in developing countries for the week ended Wednesday, the most since 2008, reports Anjani Trivedi for the Wall Street Journal.

AFP: 

• Spain Foreign Minister Sees 'Real Risk' of Greek Euro Exit. Spain's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia says he sees "real risk" of Greece leaving the euro zone.

Telegraph:

• Syriza Left demands 'Icelandic' default as Greek defiance stiffens. Greek premier Alexis Tsipras threatens Europe's creditors with a "big no" unless they yield on debt servitude. 
• Greek default is 'all but a certainty' as EU prepares for 'state of emergency'. Eleventh hour bail-out talks last just 45 minutes as Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is accused of "swindling the world" with his demands.