Bloomberg:
- Draghi Stays Silent as ECB Seeks Clarity on Latvia. (video) More than 48 hours since Latvian Governor Ilmars Rimsevics was detained by anti-graft authorities and pressed by the government to step down, the ECB is still unclear on the details of the case, the people said. The Governing Council expects to be briefed by the Executive Board at a scheduled meeting on Wednesday, they said, asking not to be identified as internal discussions are confidential. The ECB has been in contact with Rimsevics, one person said.
- World's Biggest Container Liner Looks for Deals Outside Shipping. The world’s largest container company will start looking for takeover targets outside the shipping industry as it tries to pre-empt a new competitive landscape in which customers are morphing into rivals. Jakob Stausholm, A. P. Moller-Maersk A/S’s chief financial officer and head of transformation and strategy, says the company needs to expand its land-based activities to meet a growing need from clients. “We’re currently very big in the ocean segment, and we’d rather grow in non-ocean, so it may be a good idea to look for M&A targets there,” Stausholm said in an interview Tuesday.
- Fear's Gone But Greed Hasn't Materialized in U.S. Stock Options. Warren Buffett once quipped that aspiring investors “should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.” Tell that to the options market. While the volatility-induced jolt of fear that rattled markets in early February has subsided, options buyers are sitting tight and betting on the status quo, even on the heels of the best week for U.S. equities since 2013. Put options that would pay off in mid-March if the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (ticker SPY) re-eclipses its lowest closing level of 2018 have tumbled by more than 80 percent from their recent peak.
- Money Managers Think the Worst Is Yet to Come for S&P 500. About 57 percent of investors surveyed by Strategas Research Partners expect the S&P 500 Index to break the intraday low of 2,533 reached on Feb. 9, while the rest say the market has bottomed for the year after a two-week selloff sent the index to its first 10 percent correction since 2016. The poll, conducted Feb. 16, covered roughly 500 institutional investors.
Wall Street Journal:
- Qualcomm(QCOM) Raises Bid for NXP(NXPI) to $44 Billion. Move could also help chip giant as it seeks to fend off takeover interest from Broadcom.
- Is a 3% Treasury Yield Good News or Bad? For Now, Investors Say Good. This year’s rise in yields points to a long-awaited return to economic normalcy, overcoming fears about the staying power of the postcrisis recovery.
- Syrian Forces Backed by Russia Bombard Hard-Hit Suburb of Capital. Airstrikes target hospitals, rescue centers in Eastern Ghouta, as rebel-held area appears ready to fall to Assad regime.
- Albertsons Scoops Up Remainder of Rite Aid as Retailers Face Online Threat. Transaction would create company with revenue of $83 billion and allow Albertsons to go public.
- Jihadists See a Funding Boon in Bitcoin. Cryptocurrencies come under increased U.S. scrutiny as militants seek anonymous donations.
MarketWatch.com:
Zero Hedge:
- Elliott's Singer: Bitcoin Boom Confirms "The Limitless Ignorance Of Humans". "We all laugh at primitive tribes which used large stones (or pigs) as currency. Well, laugh as you will, but a stone or a healthy pig is something. Cryptocurrencies are nothing except the marketing power of inventors, financiers and others who love the idea of buying a black box (which is obviously empty) for the price of a Kia and dreaming that it will turn into a Mercedes. There have been times recently when this dream has materialized within hours." “This [cryptocurrency] is not just a bubble. It is not just a fraud. It is perhaps the outer limit, the ultimate expression, of the ability of humans to seize upon ether and hope to ride it to the stars...But is it not glorious that when the equivalent of nothing attracts priests and parishioners who run up the price, the very willingness of the mob to buy it at higher and higher prices is seen as validation of the thing, rather than an indication of the limitless ignorance of swaths of the human race?” this limitation [scarcity] is not nearly as sacrosanct as the bitcoin evangelists would have you believe."
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