Monday, March 21, 2016

Today's Headlines

Posted by Gary .....at 2:47 PM
Bloomberg:   
  • ECB Doing Whatever It Takes Can't Make Euro-Area Banks Lend. The European Central Bank began charging banks interest on deposits in June 2014 to encourage them to lend more to companies and consumers. It hasn’t worked. Deposits at the ECB by euro-area banks in excess of required reserves have jumped sixfold since the introduction of negative interest rates, while lending within the currency bloc has barely budged. Of the 646 billion euros ($730 billion) that banks added in assets during the period, about 85 percent has ended up as deposits at the central bank. One reason banks are paying to keep money idle is a lack of demand for loans in an economy still recovering from a double-dip recession and a sovereign-debt crisis. Another is that banks saddled with bad loans or low capital levels and those in the midst of restructuring are reluctant to increase lending. Even the ECB’s latest offer to pay banks interest on money they borrow from the central bank may not do the trick.
  • Energy, Miners Drag Europe Shares Down; Bayer Rises on Deal Bets. (video) Energy producers and miners led a retreat in European stocks, while chemical companies climbed amid merger-and-acquisition speculation. Total SA dragged oil shares to the biggest drop on the Stoxx Europe 600 Index. Commodity producers snapped a three-day advance, with ArcelorMittal leading declines. BASF SE and Bayer AG led chemical stocks to the best performance on the equity gauge as Monsanto Co. was said to have explored possible deals with the two German companies. The Stoxx 600 slid 0.3 percent to 340.82 at the close of trading, after swinging between gains of as much as 0.6 percent and a loss of 0.9 percent. The volume of shares changing hands was 26 percent lower than the 30-day average.
  • Lockhart Says Economy Supports Fed Rate Hike As Soon As April. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the U.S. economy is strong enough to weather another rate increase as early as next month. “There is sufficient momentum evidenced by the economic data to justify a further step at one of the coming meetings, possibly as early as the meeting scheduled for end of April,” he said in the text of a speech in Savannah, Georgia, on Monday. Policy makers “will reevaluate whether the real economy -- the Main Street economy -- remains on the assumed path to full employment and price stability” and “take account of the context of risks and uncertainties surrounding the outlook,” he said.
  • Fed's Lacker Confident Inflation Poised to Rebound to 2% Target. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said that inflation will rise back to the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target once energy prices stabilize and the dollar stops advancing. “I am reasonably confident that, barring subsequent shocks, inflation will move back to the FOMC’s 2 percent objective over the medium term,” Lacker said in remarks prepared for a speech at the Banque de France in Paris Monday, referring to the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
  • Casino Shares Decline After Debt Rating Cut to Junk at S&P. Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA shares fell as much as 4.8 percent after the French grocer’s debt rating was cut to junk by Standard and Poor’s, increasing interest costs as short seller Carson Block attacks its accounting. The long-term debt rating was lowered by one step to BB+, the highest non-investment grade, Standard & Poor’s said in a statement Monday. The outlook is stable. S&P had said it may lower it as many as two levels. The company said the move will increase its financial costs by less than 20 million euros ($23 million), before tax and excluding planned bond buybacks. 
Wall Street Journal:
Fox News:
  • Romney makes robo-calls for Cruz in Arizona, Utah. (video) Mitt Romney is blasting out robo-calls on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz in the two Western states holding primary contests Tuesday – dismissing underdog candidate John Kasich in the process, all in the name of thwarting Donald Trump. The 2012 Republican presidential nominee has recorded calls for the Texas senator in Arizona and Utah. In them, he declares, “At this point, a vote for John Kasich is a vote for Donald Trump." “At this stage, the only way we can reach an open convention is for Senator Cruz to be successful in as many of the remaining nominating elections as possible,” Romney said on Facebook on Friday.
CNBC:
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
  • Exclusive: China central bank to Fed: A little help, please? Confronted with a plunge in its stock markets last year, China's central bank swiftly reached out to the U.S. Federal Reserve, asking it to share its play book for dealing with Wall Street's "Black Monday" crash of 1987. The request came in a July 27 email from a People's Bank of China official with a subject line: "Your urgent assistance is greatly appreciated!" In a message to a senior Fed staffer, the PBOC's New York-based chief representative for the Americas, Song Xiangyan, pointed to the day's 8.5 percent drop in Chinese stocks and said "my Governor would like to draw from your good experience."

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