Thursday, December 03, 2015

Today's Headlines

Posted by Gary .....at 3:18 PM
Bloomberg:
  • Obama Says California Shooting May Be Related to Terrorism. A mass shooting in California on Wednesday was possibly a terrorist attack, though law enforcement authorities have not yet identified a motive, President Barack Obama said a day after the rampage in San Bernardino that left 14 people dead. San Bernardino police chief Jarrod Burguan identified the suspects as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife or girlfriend, Tashteen Malik, 27. Both fled the scene of the shooting, a social services center, and were later killed by police in a daytime gun battle in a nearby residential neighborhood. "At this stage we do not yet know why this terrible event occurred," Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. "It is possible that this was terrorist-related but we don’t know. It is also possible that this was workplace-related." Farook had been employed by San Bernardino County for five years, most recently as an environmental specialist, and had worked with some of the victims, who were attending a holiday party at the center. Law enforcement authorities have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive.  
  • Draghi Convinces All But Five Officials on ECB Proposal. Mario Draghi convinced all but five members of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council to support a stimulus package that matched what he and his officials were proposing, according to euro-zone central bank officials. The ECB president didn’t push for measures beyond those he announced on Thursday, the officials said. The ECB circulated the plan to the 25-member panel in the morning. It passed with the backing of all policy makers except the two from Germany -- Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Executive Board member Sabine Lautenschlaeger -- and the governors of the Dutch, Estonian and Latvian central banks, said the officials who didn’t want to be identified because ECB discussions are private.
  • Italian Bonds Suffer Biggest Drop Since June as ECB Disappoints. Euro-area government bonds declined, with Italy’s 10-year yield climbing by the most since June, after European Central Bank policy makers brought weeks of speculation to a close with additional stimulus measures that disappointed some investors. Two-year yields from Germany to Spain jumped from record lows after the ECB cut its deposit rate to minus 0.3 percent. Fourteen economists out of 44 surveyed by Bloomberg forecast a cut of more than 10 basis points, or 0.1 percentage point. Italy’s 10-year bonds led declines with the yield surging 23 basis points to 1.62 percent as of 4:10 p.m. London time, the biggest daily increase since June 29.
  • Euro Reserves Vanishing on Draghi, Standard Chartered Says. Some of the world’s central banks have cut or completely sold off their euro holdings in anticipation of losses tied to unprecedented stimulus, according to Standard Chartered Plc. International Monetary Fund data show the euro’s share of worldwide reserves has dropped since last year, reflecting the currency’s decline, said Jukka Pihlman, Singapore-based head of coverage for central banks and sovereign wealth funds for Standard Chartered. The IMF figures don’t provide a complete picture as the reduction in euro holdings has been “more pronounced” among countries that don’t report details of the currency composition of their reserves to the organization, he said, without naming any.
  • More ECB Stimulus Raises the Question of Insanity. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has all but promised to expand and extend the institution's quantitative easing program when the ECB meets Thursday. But the logic by which he arrives at the argument for more QE would challenge even Mr. Spock at his most Vulcan. It's worth walking through some of that thinking, and some of the anomalies it produces.
  • French Unemployment Rises to Near Record in Hollande Setback. French unemployment rose to near a record high in the third quarter, the latest sign that President Francois Hollande is struggling to meet a pledge to create jobs. Unemployment climbed to 10.6 percent in the three months through September from 10.4 percent the previous quarter, national statistics office Insee said in an e-mailed statement. 
  • Brazil Signals Rate Rise on the Radar as Impeachment Starts. Brazil’s central bank signaled it’s ready to boost borrowing costs early next year as the start of impeachment proceeding against President Dilma Rousseff deepens a political crisis that is derailing the economy. Higher political and economic uncertainties threaten to keep consumer price increases above target for longer than initially expected, the central bank said Thursday in the minutes to its Nov. 24-25 meeting. It vowed to adopt the measures needed to hit the 4.5 percent inflation target in 2017. The bank published the comments less than 24 hours after the head of lower house accepted an impeachment process against Rousseff. The central bank kept the key rate at a nine-year high of 14.25 percent last week as it faces a deeper-than-forecast recession and inflation that accelerate to 10.28 percent in mid-November.
  • Loonie Bears Aren't Nearly Bearish Enough, Morgan Stanley Says. Almost no one -- from the Bank of Canada, to currency traders to Wall Street prognosticators -- grasps how far the Canadian dollar must fall to revive the nation’s economy after the collapse in oil prices, according to Morgan Stanley. The New York-based bank has joined Australia’s Macquarie Group Ltd., both among the 10 most accurate currency forecasters, in predicting the Canadian dollar will drop almost 9 percent next year after losing a quarter of its value since 2012. The decline would push the currency to C$1.45 per U.S. dollar, the cheapest since 2003, while the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 73 participants is for it to bottom at C$1.35 in 2016.
  • Emerging-Market Currencies Fall Against Euro After ECB Decision. Emerging-market currencies fell against the euro and bonds declined as some investors wagered the European Central Bank didn’t go far enough in cutting its deposit rate and boosting stimulus. The Russian ruble retreated for a third day as all but one of the 24 developing-nation exchange rates tracked by Bloomberg weakened against the shared currency. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index declined for a second day. The Brazilian real jumped 1.1 percent against the dollar after the nation’s central bank signaled it may raise interest rates early next year. “Markets are not happy about diminishing carry,” said Vladimir Miklashevsky, a strategist at Danske Bank in Moscow. “There were expectations that more dovish monetary stance by the ECB would allow more use of the euro as a funding currency.”
  • ECB Move Ripples Across Eastern Europe as Currencies, Bonds Drop. Bonds tumbled in eastern European and currencies weakened as the European Central Bank kept the amount of its asset purchases unchanged, disappointing some investors betting on bolder steps to shore up the euro-area’s economy. The yield on Poland’s benchmark 10-year government bond jumped the most in more than 14 months on a closing basis and the zloty dropped 0.7 percent against the euro. Hungary’s forint had its biggest decline versus the shared currency in a month.
  • Europe Stocks Fluctuate After ECB as Traders Await Draghi Speech. European equities tumbled the most since the August selloff as the additional stimulus measures unveiled by the region’s central bank underwhelmed investors. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 3.1 percent at the close of trading in London, reversing a gain of 0.9 percent.
  • Gross Says `De-Risk' Portfolios as Wile E. Coyote Time Nears. (video) Bill Gross says investors should move to protect their money in 2016 rather than reach for higher returns as central bank efforts to stimulate the global economy set the stage for markets to ultimately fall. Gross, the former manager of the world’s largest bond fund who joined Janus Capital Group Inc. last year, said central bankers have been doing the equivalent of printing money and acting like gamblers who keep doubling bets to recoup losses. “One day the negative feedback loop on the real economy will halt the ascent of stock and bond prices and investors will look around like Wile E. Coyote wondering how far is down,” Gross wrote in an investment outlook Thursday for Denver-based Janus. Wile E. Coyote is a cartoon character who unsuccessfully hunts the fleet bird Road Runner, injuring and humiliating himself through his ineptitude.
Breaking News:
Fox News:
  • Terror trail? Feds probe digital profile of SoCal massacre suspects. (video) Farook, 28, who authorities said was born in Illinois, and raised in California and had worked as a $51,000-per-year restaurant inspector at the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health for five years, was described by co-workers as a "devout" Muslim, who lived with his wife, child and grandmother in a home in nearby Redlands, which sources described as "an IED factory." Bomb squads working with robots swept the home late into the night Wednesday, and witnesses reported hearing several explosions. Malik, who had a 6-month-old baby with Farook, came to the U.S. on a K-1 (fiance of citizen) visa and had a Pakistani passport, according to authorities. It was not clear how long the couple had been together.
  • Paper Mocks GOP for Prayers After Mass Shooting, Pushes Gun Control. Several Republican presidential candidates who offered prayers to victims of the San Bernardino shooting yesterday were mocked by the New York Daily News. The headline on the front cover this morning blared: “God Isn’t Fixing This.” Rand Paul, Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham had each reached out to those affected by Wednesday’s deadly massacre with messages of prayer.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Inquistr:
USA Today:

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