Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Yuan Stability Seen as Key Party Line as China’s Leaders Meet. (video)
• Credit Outlook for Chinese State-Owned Enterprises Cut. (video)
• Macau's Economy Shrinks 20% in 2015 Amid Casino Gaming Slump. Macau’s economic output contracted 20.3 percent in 2015 as the world’s largest center of gambling was hurt by falling casino revenue and fewer visitors amid China’s anti-corruption campaign and slowing economy. The Chinese city’s economy shrank 14.4 percent in the fourth quarter due to the continued decline in exports of tourism and gaming services, the local statistics bureau said in an e-mailed statement, easing from a fall of 24.2 percent drop in the three months through September.
• Europe Stock Investors Fail to Buy Emerging-Market Optimism. Investors in European companies reliant on developing nations for revenue are proving less bullish in the prospects for a rebound in emerging markets than firms including Citigroup Inc. and Fidelity Investment Management. The region’s shares with the highest exposure to developing countries trade near record lows relative to those reliant on Europe and the U.S., according to Morgan Stanley indexes. Despite a rebound since last month’s low, concern lingers that China’s economy will continue to slow, while a slide in emerging-market currencies may curb sales for companies dependent on those nations. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.4 percent at 9:37 a.m. in London. “On the one hand, you see the recovery starting and brokers becoming more constructive on emerging markets, but it probably needs more before investors jump on this wagon and adjust European portfolios accordingly,” said Christoph Riniker, Zurich-based head of strategy research at Julius Baer Group Ltd. His firm manages the equivalent of $301 billion. “There’s still uncertainty whether this is just a bullish phase within a downtrend or a trend upwards.”
• Two Hundred Small-Business Leaders Sign Up for `Brexit'. More than 200 small-business leaders signed an open letter calling for British withdrawal from the European Union, highlighting a division with large companies over membership of the bloc. The letter, published in the Daily Telegraph newspaper Thursday, said voters in the June 23 referendum need to hear from “the incubators for tomorrow’s success stories,” not just “a minority of managers from Britain’s largest companies.” “Our businesses thrive because we instinctively understand that flexibility and adaptability are key to our long-term success,” the signatories said. “We employ the majority of the U.K.’s workforce. As entrepreneurs, we deal with the EU’s constant diet of unnecessary regulations which add to our cost base, reduce our bottom line, and raise prices for our customers for no return.”
• The British Economy Is Having a Terrible Week. And you think you're having a bad week? Global gloom is catching up with the U.K. While economic growth came in at 0.5 percent in the fourth quarter, a recent bad run of numbers is threatening that pace. Markit Economics sees 0.3 percent — at best — this quarter, and says its indexes are back at a level that in the past has been consistent with more Bank of England stimulus. Manufacturing, highly dependent on exports, has been struggling against global headwinds. But services, the biggest part of the economy, was apparently faring well — until this morning. Here's Markit's index of activity in services. Now at the lowest in almost three years.
• Euro area companies cut prices as recovery loses momentum. Deflationary pressures in the euro area intensified in February, raising the pressure on European Central Bank President Mario Draghi to increase stimulus this month. Markit Economics’ composite Purchasing Managers Index fell to 53 from 53.6 in January. While that’s above the initial estimate, it’s still the lowest in 13 months. Markit’s measure of output prices across manufacturing and services fell further below the key 50 level.
• Iran to Get Luxury Hotel Along Caspian Sea as Tourism Thaws. Iran, where beaches are segregated by gender and alcohol is banned, is getting its first foreign-branded seaside hotel, complete with swimming pools, bars and a spa. Melia Hotels International SA plans to open the five-star property in a 130-meter (427-feet) tower on the Caspian Sea as early as next year, the Spanish hotel operator said in a statement on Wednesday. The announcement comes after a slew of trade sanctions on the Islamic republic were lifted in January. "We firmly believe in Iran’s tourism potential," Chief Executive Officer Gabriel Escarrer said in a statement, which didn’t say whether alcohol will be served at the bars. "We have always been pioneers in the development of new markets."
• Exxon(XOM) Sees No Oil-Market Rebound Any Time Soon as Glut Persists. Exxon Mobil Corp. scaled back production targets and said drilling budgets will continue to drop through the end of next year as the oil market shows no signs of a recovery. Exxon said output from its 45,000 wells will hover at the equivalent of 4 million to 4.2 million barrels a day through 2020, rather than hitting the old target of 4.3 million as soon as next year, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told analysts at the company’s annual strategy session in New York on Wednesday. Capital spending will fall about 25 percent this year to $23.2 billion and will decline again in 2017 because it makes no sense to drill money-losing wells at current prices, he said. “We’re still oversupplying a market that doesn’t need it, doesn’t want it,” Tillerson told analysts at the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. “Global economic conditions are not inspiring. I don’t think we can look to the demand side of this market to solve this problem for us.”
• Gross Says Banks ‘Permanently Damaged’ as Credit Expansion Ends. Financial cos. will be hard-pressed to meet long-term growth expectations as decades of credit expansion come to an end and central-bank policies and tighter regulations squeeze profits, writes Janus’s Bill Gross in monthly outlook. Citigroup, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs trading far below their pre-crisis highs as credit growth that has fueled global economic expansion appears to near its end. Banking “either a screaming sector ready to be bought or a permanently damaged victim of write-offs, tighter regulation and significantly lower future margins”. Selloff in global bank stocks shows investors recognize. 
• Romney Calls Dishonesty ‘Trump's Hallmark’ in Speech Eviscerating Front-runner. (video) Mitt Romney, the Republican Party's most recent presidential nominee, took the unusual step of criticizing the odds-on favorite to be the party's next nominee in a blistering speech that labeled Donald Trump a fraud who is playing the American public for suckers. “Dishonesty is Trump's hallmark,” Romney said Thursday. “Let me put it plainly, if we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished,” Romney said at the start of his remarks in Salt Lake City. He is the chairman of Lexington, Massachusetts-based Solamere Capital. Romney said he was not announcing his own candidacy and would not make an endorsement of any single candidate. He cited all three of Trump's remaining rivals -- Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Ohio Governor John Kasich. “One of these men should be our nominee,” Romney said. “After all, this is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporter's questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his marital affairs, and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity,” Romney said. “There is dark irony in his boasts of his sexual exploits during the Vietnam War while John McCain, whom he has mocked, was imprisoned and tortured.” “One of the most disgusting things to me is his refusal to denounce the KKK,” said Nick Clayson, 21, a political science student at Utah State University and registered Republican. “That's a huge issue for me. If it came down to Clinton or Trump I would want a third party candidate to enter the race.” “Trump tells it like it is, he's not politically correct -- he says what people want to hear and doesn't hold anything back,” said John Greene, 47, who owns a real estate business in Salt Lake City. “With his lack of foreign policy experience he could run this country into the ground.” Others in the queue flew in from out of town the night before and were undecided about who they would support in their state's upcoming primary election. “I came to see if he can change the tide of the winds,” said Rachel Walston, a financial adviser from North Carolina and registered Republican who turns 37 today. “For the first time in my life I might vote for a Democrat if it comes down to Trump.”

Fox News:

• FBI investigating if Clinton aides shared passwords to access classified info. (video)

CNBC:

• I see bubbles bursting everywhere: Top academic. (video) Deflationary tides are lapping the shores of countries across the world and financial bubbles are set to burst everywhere, Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer at Yale University, told CNBC on Thursday. "I think it all started with the China investment bubble that has burst and that brought with it commodities and that pushed deflation around the world and those ripples are landing on the shore of countries literally everywhere," the high-profile author and academic said at the Global Financial Markets Forum in Abu Dhabi. On Thusday, Mansharamani said that financial bubbles had been fueled by "cheap money" created by highly accommodative monetary policy across developed economies. "I mean, we've got a bubble bursting, I would argue, in Australian housing markets — that is beginning to crack; South Africa — the whole economy; Canada — housing and the economy; Brazil. We can keep going on and on," the academic told CNBC. 
• Home flipping reached 10-year high: Can you say froth? (video)

Zero Hedge:

• What Do Bonds (And FX) Know? (graph)
• OPEC Ministers Now Resorting To Outright Lies In Desperate Attempts To Push Oil Higher.
• The U.S. Added Only 70,000 Jobs In February Based On Withheld Taxes. (graph)
• Another Very Strange Morning For Oil. (graph)
• The "Malaise Has Spread To Services"- Service Industries Cut Jobs For The First Time In Two Years. (graph)
• Gold Surges Above $1250 On Weak Data, JPM "Buy". (graph)
• "It's A Recession Stupid" - US Factory Orders Tumble For 15th Month In A Row. (graph)
• "Worse May Be To Come" As US Services Slump Into Contraction, Business Confidence At Record Lows. (graph)
• JPMorgan Goes Underweight Stocks "For The First Time This Cycle", Says To Buy Gold. (graph)
• The Ongoing Plunge In American Worker Productivity Explained. (graph)
• Initial Jobless Claims Rise Again But What's Wrong With This Picture? (graph)
• Large Cap Growth Stocks At "Pivotal" Level. (graph)

Business Insider:

• TRUMP: Romney was begging so much, I could've said: 'Mitt, drop to your knees...'.
• Morgan Stanley(MS) is concerned about 5 red flags with Under Armour's(UA) business.
• US general: China's airpower will overtake the US Air Force by 2030.

PBS: 

• Watch Mitt Romney's full speech: ‘Trump is a phony, a fraud’. (video)

Vox: 

• Trump University, explained. Before Donald Trump was knocking on the door of the Republican nomination for president, he charged thousands of dollars for an education at "Trump University," promising to share the secrets of his real estate investing success. The only problem: Trump University wasn't anything close to a university. It was a multilevel marketing scheme.

Telegraph:

• Bank boss warns property lenders are getting reckless. Some banks are recklessly offering large loans without paying sufficient attention to the borrower’s ability to make repayments if interest rates go up and house prices wobble, according to the boss of Shawbrook Bank. The challenger bank offers mortgages but says it takes precautions to ensure both it and its customers can cope if the economy takes a turn for the worse.
• Moody’s downgrades BHP Billiton on gloomy commodities outlook. The agency lowered BHP’s rating to A3 from A1, and kept its outlook as negative. Matthew Moore of Moody’s said the current slump in commodities was a “fundamental shift” that went beyond “a normal cyclical downturn”. “Moody's expects BHP Billiton's credit metrics to remain substantially weaker over the next 12-24 months than historical levels,” he said.

Vedomosti:

• Russia Sees Oil Averaging $35/barrel in 2016. Russia's Economy Ministry base case sees oil averaging $35/barrel in 2016, $40/barrel and $45/barrel for next two years, citing obtained updated estimates, which is not final forecast. Ministry forecasts $35b capital outflow in 2016.