Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:    
  • Russia Launches Syrian Air Strikes to Back Putin Ally Assad. Russia is deploying armed forces in the Middle East for the first time in more than three decades after launching air strikes to defend President Vladimir Putin’s beleaguered ally Bashar al-Assad. Russia carried out its first air attacks against Islamic State targets in Syria, hitting arms and ammunition stores and transport and communication equipment, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said by phone. Syrian state-run TV cited an unnamed military source as saying Russian jets struck several Islamic State targets in Syria’s central Homs and Hama provinces. U.S. and French officials questioned whether Russia hadn’t instead targeted other opposition groups fighting Assad.
  • Decade of Gulf bond-market growth fading as borrowers hold back. Issuance from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council dropped 31% to $20.4b this year through Wednesday, while $23.5b of securities are due to mature in 2015. Dubai: Unless Gulf bond sales pick up in the fourth quarter, the market will shrink this year for the first time in a decade. And the prospects aren’t looking good.
  • Canada’s corporate bonds are worst among peers with room to drop. Renewed turmoil in global commodity markets is hammering Canada’s corporate bonds, pushing them to the worst performance in the industrialized world -- with little relief in sight. Investors in Canadian corporate debt lost 1.1 per cent during the third quarter, compared with an average return of 0.12 per cent among Group of 10 countries, according to data from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Corporate Index. The plunge came amid a collapse in commodity prices as China faces its slowest pace of expansion in 25 years.  
  • German Unemployment Unexpectedly Rises in Sign of Economic Risks. German unemployment unexpectedly rose in September in a sign that Europe’s largest economy is not immune to risks from slowing growth in emerging markets. Joblessness increased a seasonally adjusted 2,000 to 2.795 million, the Federal Labor Agency in Nuremberg said on Wednesday. Economists had predicted a drop of 5,000. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.4 percent, the lowest level since German reunification. 
  • Ringgit's Slide Spurs Worst Quarterly Bond Losses in Six Years. A slide in Malaysia’s ringgit spurred the biggest quarterly loss in the nation’s bonds since 2009 and drove up the cost to insure the debt by the most in four years. The ringgit’s weakness, slowing Chinese growth, slumping commodity prices and a looming U.S. interest-rate increase prompted global investors to pull funds from Malaysian stocks and bonds. Reports this month from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times over money laundering and overseas property purchases relating to 1Malaysia Development Bhd. and Prime Minister Najib Razak also weighed on sentiment.
  • Health Care Does Harm as Canada Stocks Approach Bear Market. Canadian stocks, running out of legs to stand on, are now lurching toward a bear market. Losses among equities in the Standard & Poor’s/TSX Composite Index, already hampered by a rout in commodities, have accelerated in September as health-care stocks joined the fray, led by a 30 percent plunge in Laval, Quebec-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. 
  • European Stocks Rise. Glencore Plc led commodity producers higher, adding 14 percent as metal prices rose and investors accepted reassurances that it can withstand current market conditions. PSA Peugeot Citroen paced gains in auto-related stocks, rising 6.4 percent, as China said it would halve purchase tax on certain vehicles. Volkswagen AG, which has lost more than a third of its value since admitting to cheating on emission tests, increased 2.7 percent. J Sainsbury Plc led an advance in retailers, soaring 14 percent after saying full-year profit may beat consensus estimates. Tesco Plc rose 7 percent. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped 2.5 percent to 347.77 at the close of trading. Shares slid yesterday, as concern over a slowdown in Asia and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve’s actions continued to weigh on investor sentiment and stoke volatility.
  • Shanghai's Biggest Brokers Switch to Net-Short Copper Position. The 20 largest brokers on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ranked by open interest held a combined net-short position of 535 contracts as of Wednesday from a net-long position of 3,747 lots on Sept. 25, according to Bloomberg calculations based on exchange data.
  • More Shocks Seen Roiling Commodities After Worst Drop Since 2008. Commodities are set for their worst quarter since the 2008 global financial crisis and Morgan Stanley warns that more losses may be ahead. Returns from 22 raw materials tracked by Bloomberg have shrunk about 14 percent, the most since the last quarter of 2008, amid forecasts for the slowest economic growth since 1990 in China, the biggest user of energy, metals and grains. Oil has led the collapse as OPEC producers pump near record levels while everything from copper to wheat are also down more than 10 percent on speculation that supplies are outpacing demand.
  • Worst Quarter in Four Years Heralds Yet More Pain for Junk Bonds. Junk-bond investors are closing the books on their worst quarter in four years. And there’s no sign the pain will end. Investors who helped companies from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. to Cheniere Energy Inc. raise a record $1.7 trillion of new speculative-grade bonds in the past five years are now bracing for the end of the credit boom as debt-laden businesses grapple with lackluster earnings. For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. speculative-grade bonds are set to post a fourth straight month of losses, Bank of America Merrill Lynch Indexes show. What started as a decline in commodities-related debt with the collapse in oil prices last year is spilling out to industries including retail, media and telecommunications. More than half the sectors in the market have reported losses for five months, a streak not seen since the 2008 financial crisis, according to Bank of America Corp. analysts.
Fox News:
  • Russia launches airstrikes in northern Syria, senior military official says. (video) Russian warplanes began bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war-torn nation's north Wednesday, following a terse meeting at which a Russian general asked Pentagon officials to clear out of Syrian air space and was rebuffed, Fox News has learned. A U.S. official said Russian airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a "couple" of Russian bombers. The strikes hit targets in Homs and Hama, but there is no presence of ISIS in those areas, a senior U.S. defense official said. These planes are hitting areas where Free Syrian Army and other anti-Assad groups are located, the official said.
Zero Hedge:
Telegraph:

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