Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:    

• Saudi Prince Says He Could Add a Million Barrels Immediately. Saudi Arabia could raise crude output by more than a million barrels a day immediately if there was demand for it, said the kingdom’s Deputy Crown Prince, as he reiterated the nation would only agree to freeze production if all major producers including Iran do the same. The world’s largest oil exporter could increase output to 11.5 million barrels a day immediately and go to 12.5 million in six to nine months "if we wanted to," Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also chairman of the Supreme Council of Saudi Arabian Oil Co., said in an interview Thursday. The country pumped 10.2 million barrels a day last month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. If the kingdom chose to increase investment in its oil industry, total production capacity could be increased to 20 million barrels a day, the prince said at King Salman’s private farm in Diriyah, the original home of the Al Saud royal family. “I don’t suggest that we should produce more, but we can produce more,” said the prince, who is the king’s son, second in line to the throne and a leading force in the country’s economic policy. “We can produce 20 million barrels of oil per day if we invested in production capacity, but we can’t produce beyond 20 million.”
• Japan Gets Little G-20 Support for Possible Yen Intervention. Japan has won little sympathy from its Group of 20 counterparts for the pain being caused by a stronger yen, signaling opposition to shielding the country’s fragile economy via intervention to curb the currency’s strength. During a G-20 meeting in Washington on Thursday and Friday, Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said he re-confirmed with his counterparts, including U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, that disorderly currency movements aren’t desirable. But within 24 hours, Lew had bluntly said that Japan needs to focus on domestic demand and called foreign-exchange market moves “orderly” -- a clear warning that the U.S. doesn’t view yen intervention as warranted. “There’s a broad consensus that we should avert as a global financial system any kind of competitive devaluation cycle,” said Mexican Finance Minister Luis Videgaray. “So I don’t think that it is likely that would be a possibility in Japan or any other place,” he told Bloomberg in Washington.
• Rousseff Says Impeachment Would Put Brazil’s Democracy at Risk. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff said democracy and social programs are at risk as she made a last-ditch call on Brazilians to defend her before a crucial impeachment vote on Sunday. “What’s at stake is respect for the sovereign will of the people, what’s at stake are social achievements and Brazilians’ rights,” Rousseff said in a seven-minute video posted on the Internet. “I turn to you to ask that you keep defending democracy, that you keep mobilizing in schools, streets and on social networks.” Rousseff initially intended to address the nation on television and radio on Friday, but instead posted the video overnight after the opposition filed legal motions arguing she can’t make a nationally broadcast speech to defend herself.
• UnitedHealth(UNH) to Exit Michigan Obamacare Exchange, State Says. UnitedHealth Group Inc. plans to exit a third state Obamacare market as the insurer works to stem losses from its struggling Affordable Care Act business. The insurer won’t sell policies through Michigan’s ACA exchange for next year, according to Andrea Miller, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Georgia and Arkansas said last week that UnitedHealth will quit their exchanges for 2017.

Wall Street Journal:

• Greece’s Creditors Weigh Extra Austerity Measures to Break Deadlock. Bid to bridge differences between Europe and IMF that threaten to unravel Greek bailout. Greece’s creditors are considering seeking extra austerity measures that would be triggered if Athens misses its fiscal targets, in a bid to bridge differences between Europe and the International Monetary Fund and break a deadlock threatening to unravel the Greek bailout.
• Brazil’s Rousseff Works to Sway Lawmakers on Eve of Impeachment Vote. President meets with officials at her residence while other lawmakers continue congressional session.
• Chinese Lender’s Woes Expose Its Global Tentacles. Problems at Shanghai Kuailu Investment underscore risks of a loosely regulated financing industry that relies on mom-and-pop investors. A crisis rocking a loosely regulated lending network is underlining the risks of a financing boom that has channeled Chinese household money into Hollywood movies and Wall Street deals.
• U.S. Releases Nine Guantanamo Prisoners, Sends Them to Saudi Arabia. Move is part of Obama administration’s effort to release detainees considered low-risk.
• Trump Can’t Break the Republican Party. Republicans may be split temporarily, but there is no deep Trumpist movement to push permanent schism.

Barron's:

• Had bullish commentary on (F), (SRPT), (AJRD), (XRS), (INTC), (SEE) and (GM).

MarketWatch.com:

• Central banks may do more harm than good, says head of India’s central bank. 

CNBC:

• EM rally a head fake? Risks to watch. Investors are dipping back into emerging markets, but some analysts warn the appearance of a recovery overlooks a number of potential risks in the battered asset class. EM equity funds reversed 17 weeks of net redemptions to end the first quarter with their longest run of inflows since the third quarter of 2014, according to EPFR's Global Fund Flows and Allocations Data.

Zero Hedge:

• "The Big Move" Is Coming. (graph)
• Saudi Arabia Threatens To Liquidate Its Treasury Holdings If Congress Probes Its Role In Sept 11 Attacks.
• Denmark, Belgium, Now The Netherlands: Negative Mortgage Rates Spread Across Europe.
• One Reader Tried To Get The Recording Of Yellen's "World-Saving Phone Call"; This Is What The Fed Replied.
• The Keynesian House Of Denial.
• The Fed Sends A Frightening Letter To JPMorgan, Corporate Media Yawns. 
• What Happens Next (In Europe)? (graph)
• Investigating Deutsche Bank’s €21 Trillion Derivative Casino In Wake Of Admission It Rigged Gold And Silver.
• Doug Casey: The Real Problem Is Government.
• China - A Reversal Of Urbanization? (graph)
• A Crisis In American Housing. (graph)
• Hillary Clinton To Nation: "Do Not Screw This Up For Me".

Business Insider:

• A bunch of hedge fund managers got together in a room and talked about how long China has. One investor told the entire room of hedge fund managers how long China has before it runs out of foreign exchange reserves. The country, said Anne Stevenson-Yang co-founder of J Capital Research, has 9 months before its currency "reserves are down to a perilous point." She calculated that reserves, this summer around $3.4 trillion, have dwindled down to $2.9 trillion. "In 12 months there will be a currency crisis of around 15%," she said. "There will be a banking crisis two years later."
• The Apple(AAPL) Watch has been a failure.
• Saudi Arabia is ramping up its oil production.

Reuters:

• Iran will not attend Doha oil freeze talks on Sunday -sources. Iran will not attend a meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC member countries about freezing oil output levels scheduled for Doha, Qatar, on Sunday, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters. Tehran's oil minister had not been scheduled to attend, but the OPEC member country was due to send a representative.

The Telegraph:

• Can anything stop this global cycle of doom? The patient is in a critical condition. The International Monetary Fund is concerned that the global economic recovery has taken too long. Kaushik Basu, chief economist of the World Bank, says the financial crisis has left a “festering wound” that is “refusing to heal”.

FAS:

• Negative Interest Rates 'Insane' Experiment, El-Erian Tells FAS. ECB attempting "insane experiment" with negative interest rates as that means creidtors must pay for granting others privilege to borrow from them, Allianz chief economic adviser Mohamed El-Erian says in interview. Says negative interest rates upend the financial system; pension funds, banks, insurers need interest income.

IRNA:

• Iran's Crude Oil Production Surpassed 3.5m Barrels Per Day. Iran's gas condensate exports will increase by 10% in coming months, citing Deputy Oil Minister Rokneddin Javadi.

Zanganeh:

• Iran Won't Freeze Oil Production at Jan. '16 Levels. Iran didn't send representative to Doha meeting, supports decision for other OPEC and non-OPEC countries to freeze crude oil production, Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said in interview with Iranian state TV. Iran freezing crude output levels would amount to "a kind of self-imposed sanction," Zanganeh said.