Broad Market Tone:
- Advance/Decline Line: Lower
- Sector Performance: Most Sectors Declining
- Market Leading Stocks: Performing In Line
Equity Investor Angst:
- ISE Sentiment Index 117.0 +50.0%
- Total Put/Call .94 -9.62%
Credit Investor Angst:
- North American Investment Grade CDS Index 85.49 -1.64%
- European Financial Sector CDS Index 168.10 -4.2%
- Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 103.34 +.61%
- Emerging Market CDS Index 241.06 -4.6%
- 2-Year Swap Spread 14.75 -.25 bp
- 3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -17.0 +.5 bp
Economic Gauges:
- 3-Month T-Bill Yield .06% unch.
- China Import Iron Ore Spot $137.60/Metric Tonne +1.25%
- Citi US Economic Surprise Index 2.90 -1.1 points
- 10-Year TIPS Spread 2.46 -1 bp
Overseas Futures:
- Nikkei Futures: Indicating +318 open in Japan
- DAX Futures: Indicating +27 open in Germany
Portfolio:
- Higher: On gains in my tech/medical/biotech/retail sector longs
- Disclosed Trades: Covered some of my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges and some of my (EEM) short
- Market Exposure: Moved to 75% Net Long
Bloomberg:
- Sentix European Investor Confidence Falls After Cyprus Bailout. European investor confidence
declined more than economists forecast in April, after the bail-
in of Cypriot bank depositors rattled financial markets, the
Sentix research institute said today. An index measuring sentiment in the euro-area fell to minus 17.3 from minus 10.6 in March,
the Limburg, Germany-based institute said in an e-mailed statement.
That’s the second drop in a row and the lowest reading since December. Economists had predicted a decline to minus 12.8, according to the median of 18 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. A gauge of economic
expectations decreased to 0.5 from 8.3, while a measure of
current conditions fell to minus 33.5 from minus 27.8.
- China Export-Data Skepticism Deepens From Goldman to Nomura. China’s
unprecedented run of better- than-forecast export growth has spurred
deeper skepticism of the data at banks including Goldman Sachs Group
Inc., casting doubt on the strength of the recovery. Gains in
overseas shipments exceeded forecasts by at least 7.5 percentage points
in December, January and February, the first time that’s happened in
three straight months in the eight years Bloomberg has compiled analyst
estimates for the data. March figures are due to be released tomorrow at
10 a.m. at a briefing in Beijing, giving the customs administration an
opportunity to address the issue. Overstated exports would mean China is failing to get the boost from global demand that the data suggest as the new government under Premier Li Keqiang seeks to sustain an economic rebound.
- Soros Sees China Shadow-Banking Risks Similar to Subprime.
Billionaire investor George Soros said China has a “couple of years” to
control risks from nontraditional financing whose expansion has
parallels with the cause of the global
financial crisis. “The rapid growth of shadow banking has some
disturbing similarities with the subprime-mortgage market in the U.S.
that caused the financial crisis of 2007-2008,” Soros said today in a
speech at the Boao Forum for Asia in China. “I’m sure the authorities
are aware of the dangers. They have both the skills and the resources to deflate an incipient bubble gradually. The comments add to concerns that the increase in credit risks triggering turmoil that would cause an economic downturn. Aggregate
financing, an indicator started by the central bank in 2011 to provide a
broader gauge of funding, more than doubled to a record in January from
a year
earlier.
- VIX Bets Climb to Three-Yera High on Earnings Concern: Options.
Wagers that U.S. stock volatility will increase have reached a
three-year high on concern American companies are getting ready to
report the first slump in profit since 2009. There were 6.54 million
calls on the CBOE Volatility Index and 2.34 million puts on April 4,
according to Bloomberg. The ratio jumped to 2.93-to-1.0 last month, the
highest since March 2010.
- Fisker Struggles Mark Blow to Obama’s Electric-Car Goal.
The possible bankruptcy of Fisker Automotive Inc., which last week
fired three-quarters of its workforce, is the latest blow to President
Barack Obama’s goal of having 1 million electric vehicles on U.S. roads
by 2015. Fisker’s downfall after receiving $193 million in U.S. taxpayer
money and producing 2,500 cars may complete the U.S. government’s
transformation from electric-vehicle promoter and financier to debt
collector, two years after it approved its
last loan. Obama’s goal was “misguided” in the first place, putting
the administration’s eagerness to rush out loans and grants
while money was available ahead of due diligence, said Menahem Anderman, president of Total Battery Consulting Inc., in Oregon
House, California. “The timing was based on the government’s spending
schedule rather than the schedule of the market and the
readiness of the technology,” Anderman said. “You had a very
complex vehicle to produce, a questionable market, in terms of
demand, with a team that hadn’t proven it could build it or sell
it.”
Wall Street Journal:
- Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher Dies. 'Iron Lady' Was Among Most Influential Global Leaders of Postwar Period. Margaret
Thatcher, the former British prime minister who became one of the most
influential global leaders of the postwar period, died on Monday, three
decades after her championing of free-market economics and individual
choice transformed Britain's economy and her vigorous foreign policy
played a key role in the end of the Cold War. "It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that
their mother, Baroness Thatcher, died peacefully following a stroke
this morning," said Mrs. Thatcher's spokesman, Timothy Bell. She was 87.
"We've lost a great prime minister, a great leader, a great Briton,"
said U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, who cut short a Europe trip to
return to the U.K. on Monday afternoon. "She saved our country and I
believe she will go down as the greatest British peacetime prime
minister."
- Pyongyang Suspends Kaesong Operations.
North Korea said it intends to withdraw all its workers from an
industrial park jointly run with South Korea and is considering closing
the complex permanently. That would leave the last remaining symbol of
inter-Korean cooperation close to collapse and mark a significant
exacerbation of tensions on the Korean peninsula. The move, coming as Seoul continues to face a barrage of war threats
from the North, provides a fresh challenge for new South Korean
President Park Geun-hye's pledge to improve ties with Pyongyang. Some 53,000 North Koreans work at the complex. As of late Monday, 475
South Koreans and four Chinese nationals remained on the site.
CNBC:
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
- Italy public debt to rise 3 points after companies paid. Italy's public debt will rise
by at least three percentage points over the next two years due
to government plans to pay some 40 billion euros of debts owed
by the state to private suppliers, its economy minister said.
Italy's debt hit a record 127 percent of gross domestic product at the
end of last year, the second highest in the euro zone after Greece.
- ECB warns of risks in correspondent banking. The ECB
warned on Monday against concentration in the correspondent banking
business, which handles payments between smaller banks, saying if a
major player failed it could threaten financial stability.
Financial Times:
- Banks pull back from lending to emerging markets groups.
Lending by western banks to companies across emerging markets is
falling sharply as the eurozone banking crisis grinds on, new research
shows. The value of new syndicated loans made to EM businesses fell 20 per
cent to $276bn in 2012 from $343.2bn in the previous year, according to a
report given to FTfm by Cordiant, a private debt fund manager based in
Montreal. This lending slowdown suggests businesses in the developing world are
just as caught out by the dry-up in financing as their western
counterparts, and face difficulty growing.
- Fed warned to rein in QE. One
of Wall Street’s biggest money managers has called on the Federal
Reserve to rein in its programme of quantitative easing, saying its
bond-buying tactics are a “large and dull hammer” that have distorted
markets and risk stoking inflation. Rick Rieder, who oversees $763bn
in fixed income investments for BlackRock, spoke out as the Fed debates
how long to persist with the unorthodox measures it has used to
stimulate the US economy. His comments add BlackRock to the growing list of Fed critics who are warning of trouble ahead for the bond market.
Telegraph:
Style Underperformer:
Sector Underperformers:
- 1) Education -1.94% 2) Gold & Silver -1.33% 3) Biotech -.76%
Stocks Falling on Unusual Volume:
- KEP, TWC, SU, OMPI, BYI, ANV, OXY, EDAC, ATK, FFIV, SI, QCOR, CM, SRPT, RST, CSTE, WFM, PBF, JNJ, SFUN, MXF, IRWD, CONN, GOOG, ROK, CTXS and AFL
Stocks With Unusual Put Option Activity:
- 1) BBBY 2) WFM 3) OXY 4) FSLR 5) EWY
Stocks With Most Negative News Mentions:
- 1) RDWR 2) LLL 3) XOM 4) UPS 5) COH
Charts:
Style Outperformer:
Sector Outperformers:
- 1) Oil Service +3.63% 2) Gaming +1.28% 3) Airlines +.89%
Stocks Rising on Unusual Volume:
Stocks With Unusual Call Option Activity:
- 1) GT 2) CTXS 3) ABT 4) MNST 5) JNJ
Stocks With Most Positive News Mentions:
- 1) SSI 2) COG 3) PG 4) LUFK 5) GS
Charts:
Weekend Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Liquidity Carpet Bombs Fueling Asset Bubbles, Rohde Says. Policy makers steering the global
economy have pumped the financial system with so much liquidity
that any exit risks popping potential asset bubbles or stunting
a recovery, Danish central bank Governor Lars Rohde said. “The risk is we stay in this climate too long
and that the
carpet bombing of liquidity spurs inflation,” Rohde, 59, said in an
April 5 interview from his office in Copenhagen. Though there are no
current signs of consumer price inflation “there is inflation, perhaps a
bubble, in some asset classes,” he said. “Equities (MXWO) are
trading close to all-time highs. Segments of property markets across the
globe, for example London, also display symptoms of this. How do we
exit this without killing whatever nascent recovery there might be at
that time?” The warning from the head of Denmark’s central bank, which
has kept its deposit rate below zero since July, comes as policy makers
in Japan, the euro area and the U.S. deliver unprecedented monetary
stimulus to drag the global economy out of the worst crisis since the
Great Depression. Easy money has fueled equity prices, helping send the
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to an all-time high on April 2. The
yield on Japan’s benchmark 10-year bond hit its lowest on record last
week. “We’re in a landscape where we’ve never been before, with
regard to extreme monetary accommodation over a very, very long
period of time,” said Rohde, who took over as the head of
Denmark’s central bank in February. “What does that end up
doing to a society? It’s been a necessary policy, but I have my
concerns about what the long-term risks are.”
- Portugal Plans More Spending Cuts After Court Ruling on Salaries. Portugal will carry out more
spending cuts this year after the Constitutional Court blocked a
plan to suspend a monthly salary payment to state workers and
pensioners. “I will give instructions to the ministries to proceed
with the necessary reductions in operating expenses to
compensate for what was blocked by the Constitutional Court’s
ruling,” Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho said in Lisbon
yesterday. “The government does not accept more tax increases,
which seems to be the solution that the Constitutional Court
favors in its interpretation.” Passos Coelho is battling rising joblessness and lower
demand from European trading partners as he cuts spending and
raises taxes to meet the terms of the country’s 78 billion-euro
($101 billion) aid plan from the European Union and the
International Monetary Fund. The government on March 15
announced wider deficit targets as it forecast the economy will
shrink twice as much as previously estimated this year. The Constitutional Court’s ruling delays completion of the
seventh review of the aid plan, and the corresponding
disbursement of 2 billion euros won’t be paid until that review
is concluded, Passos Coelho said.
- Cyprus Woes Threaten East Europe Growth, Development Bank Says. Cyprus’s
bailout threatens slowing
eastern European growth through trade and banking links if it
sparks capital flight from the most indebted euro-area nations, the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said. Another bout of
uncertainty in Europe’s debt crisis may boost financing costs for banks
and potentially trigger an outflow of “large” deposits and funding in
countries with weaker lenders or sovereigns, EBRD Deputy Chief Economist
Jeromin Zettelmeyer said in an April 5 interview in London. Eastern
Europe relied on foreign capital flows and easy access to credit and
export markets to fuel growth of more than 5 percent a year before the
global crisis of 2008. The Cyprus bailout, where international creditors
forced losses on large depositors in exchange for a 10 billion-euro
($12.8 billion) aid package, may lead to capital flight and weaker
growth in countries such as Italy and Spain, Zettelmeyer said.
“These are very important countries and they are very large and so if
there’s a slowdown in the EU as a result of this
it would certainly affect” the 29 eastern European countries
where the EBRD lends, he said. “The risks are higher than we
thought and they are further to the downside than what we
thought.”
- Slovenia Bailout Signaled by Worsening Debt Swaps: Euro Credit. Slovenia’s creditworthiness is
deteriorating at the fastest pace in the world after Cyprus as
investors speculate a banking crisis will force it to follow the
island nation and become the sixth euro country to need aid. Credit-default swaps insuring Slovenian debt for five years
soared as much as 66 percent to a six-month high of 414 basis
points on March 28 from 250 on March 15, the last trading day
before Cyprus announced plans for its rescue. It’s now up 35
percent at 338 basis points, compared with a 54 percent increase for Cyprus and 13 percent for Portugal in the period.
Slovenia’s two-week old government is struggling to prop up
banks hit by recession and saddled with bad loans worth about a
fifth of the country’s economic output.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping says nation will firmly uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Stability in Asia faces huge challenges, he said. The
global economy has entered a period of profound readjustment,
protectionism is rising and economic recovery remains elusive, Xi says.
- Local Chinese government debt may be more than 20t yuan, Xiang
Huaicheng, former minister of finance, says at the Boao Forum for Asia.
China's National Audit Office said in 2011 report that local government
debt was 10.7 trillion yuan.
- IPO Bankers Become Frogs in Hot Water Amid China’s Market Freeze. Shen
Wei, one of the first 600
investment bankers authorized to sign off on initial public offerings in
China, said the license that made him one of the “golden collared” has
lost its magic. The teacher’s son studied 14-hours a day for a month in 2004 to qualify after China’s securities regulator mandated that
two so-called baodai, or sponsor representatives, conduct due
diligence and sign off on every IPO to curb fraud. Demand for
such bankers is now being eroded by a freeze on IPOs, a surge in
people getting licensed and an easing of underwriting rules.
- China’s Stocks Fall 10% From February High on Bird Flu Concern.
China’s stocks fell after a two-day holiday, dragging the benchmark
index down 10 percent from a February high, amid concern a bird flu
outbreak and property market curbs will hurt the nation’s economic
recovery. A gauge of property shares in Shanghai slid the most in a
month and China Vanke Co. slumped 4 percent after Beijing increased the
minimum downpayment on purchases of second homes. Air China Ltd. and
China Southern Airlines Co. dropped at least 5 percent on speculation
flu deaths may deter people from traveling. Hualan Biological
Engineering Inc. (002007) led gains for health-care companies. The
Shanghai Composite Index (SHCOMP) tumbled 1.9 percent to 2,183.97 at
9:43 a.m. local time, heading for the biggest loss
since March 28. The CSI 300 Index slid 2 percent to 2,434.93.
- China Pressure Key to Ease North Korea Tension, McCain Says.
China should use its economic and
political clout to calm tensions with North Korea and help guard against
an accidental escalation into armed conflict, Arizona Republican
Senator John McCain said. “China does hold the key to this problem,”
McCain said
yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” program. “China can cut
off their economy if they want to.”
- BHP(BHP) Sees Copper Surplus on Weaker Demand, Growing Mine Supply. BHP
Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s largest mining company, said copper
supplies may exceed demand this year and next on growing stockpiles and
as the Melbourne- based company ramps up output at its Escondida mine in
Chile. It’s “possible” that the market may have a “small surplus”
of supply in 2013 and 2014, Peter Beaven, head of the company’s base
metals operations, told reporters in Santiago April 4. Escondida’s
output will grow 10 percent a year through 2015 when it reaches a record
1.3 million metric tons, he said. As copper executives gather in
Santiago this week for an annual dinner organized by industry group
Cesco, Chile, the top producer, sees slowing demand growth in China, the largest
consumer of the metal, Mining Minister Hernan de Solminihac said
in an April 4 interview. Global copper usage will trail supplies
by 97,000 metric tons this year, Barclays Plc said April 4.
- Fisker’s Job Cuts Fuel Political Debate on Green Energy Projects. Fisker
Automotive Inc.’s mass firings after receiving federal loans to build
luxury plug-in cars is adding to the political debate over the U.S.
government’s funding of clean-energy programs. Most of the assets of
Fisker’s battery supplier that received a $249.1 million federal grant,
the former A123 Systems Inc., were acquired last year by a Chinese
company. Now Fisker, awarded $529 million in U.S. loans, is firing 75
percent of its workforce after failing to secure a deal with an
automotive partner to fund operations. The debacle is reviving questions
over whether the government should be funding makers of alternative
energy ventures. Fisker and A123, whose bankruptcy halted Fisker’s
output, have drawn Republican criticism of President Barack Obama’s
support of green-energy programs intended to spur more fuel-efficient
cars. “The Department of Energy has never owned up to its mistakes and
acknowledged it didn’t do a good job of choosing Fisker and A123 as
worthy of taxpayer investment,” Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa
Republican, said in an e-mailed statement. Another Republican, Senator
John Thune of South Dakota, predicted “the company could go bankrupt and
cost millions of taxpayer dollars.”
Wall Street Journal:
- China Fund Chief Raps U.S. CIC's Gao Xiqing Says Some Politicians 'Look at Chinese Investment as Suspect'.
The U.S. is telling China's $500 billion sovereign-wealth fund to "go
away," according to the fund's top executive, in the latest sign of
strained investment ties between the world's two largest economies.
During the financial crisis, "we were sort of welcome" in America,
said Gao Xiqing, head of China Investment Corp., in a panel discussion
on Sunday at the Boao Forum for Asia. Since then, "somehow we've become
stigmatized," he said, adding that "there have been quite a few cases
where the U.S. says 'go away.'"
- Hedge-Fund Star Gets a Hip Check. Jeffrey Vinik's Tampa Bay Lightning are struggling, but
the performance of his National Hockey League team isn't the only worry
for the veteran stock-picker. Investors have asked to pull around $1.5
billion from his hedge-fund firm after a period of poor performance,
according to people briefed on the matter. The withdrawal requests
amount to around 18% of the roughly $8 billion that was run by Vinik
Asset Management. Vinik Offshore Fund, which bets on and against stocks,
gained just 0.3%
from July last year through February, according to a March investor
presentation viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
- Disability Fund to Be Depleted by 2016. Even as more people in the U.S. rely on disability benefits, the program
that pays them is running into a problem: there isn’t enough money
coming in to cover the amount that’s going out.
- Syria's Escalating War Bleeds Into Lebanon. Sectarian Tensions Prompt Resignation of Prime Minister in Beirut, as Rival Sunni, Shiite Factions Back Foes Next Door. Syria's civil war, two years in the making, has come to neighboring Lebanon.
Assassinations, firefights and
skirmishes are pulling rival Sunni and Shiite factions here into a
confrontation that threatens to tear Lebanon apart.
- Investors Bankroll Lawsuits. Law would seem to be the furthest thing from a growth industry these
days. But a certain class of investors sees one aspect—big commercial
lawsuits—as an increasingly good bet. A new generation of investors is plunging into "litigation finance,"
putting up millions of dollars to fund lawsuits in hopes of collecting
when verdicts come down. Established financiers are expanding into new
areas, including loans to law firms, and finding clients among the
biggest American companies. Law firms themselves are starting to jump on the bandwagon, too. They
are seeking funding arrangements for clients who need help going after
opponents with deeper pockets, or simply want to keep litigation costs
off their balance sheets.
- Big Question in U.S. vs. S&P. Why is the U.S. government trying to obtain billions of dollars in
damages from Standard & Poor's Ratings Services for allegedly
slipshod work on mortgage-linked securities, but nothing from rival
Moody's?
- Reflections of a Medical Ex-Practitioner. The glow of the personal relationship with patients is being extinguished. A fundamental principle in medicine is that if you get the diagnosis
wrong, you'll probably apply the wrong therapy. A corollary is that if
the therapy isn't working, increasing the dose may make things worse.
That's where we are with ObamaCare.
There are shortcomings aplenty in the
health-care field, and changes and improvements are required. But never
have I seen so many good intentions leading irreversibly to hell.
Fox News:
- Family mourns 25-year-old US diplomat killed in Afghanistan. Anne Smedinghoff had a quiet ambition
and displayed a love of global affairs from an early age, joining the
U.S. Foreign Service straight out of college and volunteering for
missions in perilous locations worldwide.
So when the 25-year-old suburban Chicago woman was killed Saturday in
southern Afghanistan — the first American diplomat to die on the job
since last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya — her family took solace in
the fact that she died doing something she loved.
CNBC:
Business Insider:
Reuters:
- Pension underfunding grows despite U.S. market rally: study. The gap between what major corporations will owe retired workers and how
much they have put aside grew last year despite a strong stock market
rally, according to a study set to be released on Monday by Wilshire
Associates. The cumulative liability among defined benefit pension
plans sponsored by companies in the benchmark Standard and Poor's 500
index increased to $1.56 trillion in 2012 from $1.38 trillion the year
before, outpacing the growth in assets. As a result, the overall funding
ratio - a measure of a plan's assets divided by its commitments - for
all plans fell from 79.7 percent to
78.1 percent, the study found. Low interest rates -
which are used to calculate future benefits - were a significant factor
behind the increase in pension liabilities, said Russell Walker, a vice
president at Wilshire and one of the authors of the report. Mergers and
acquisitions also increased pension funding liabilities.
- Hedge funds' bullish commodity bets down most since Feb. Hedge
funds and other big speculators have cut their bullish bets on
commodities by the most since February, trade data showed on Friday,
amid signs of stagnating U.S. economic recovery and uncertainty over raw
materials demand. Money managers slashed by $9.7 billion their
net-long holdings across 22 commodities to $59.7 billion during the week
to April 2, according to Reuters calculations of data released by the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The last time net-long
managed money in those markets fell by more was during the week to Feb.
19, when there was a drop of $12.9 billion. Corn, gold and soybeans accounted for nearly 80
percent of the latest decline.
- Italy's centre left divided over nemesis Berlusconi. Two months after placing first in
a vote but falling short of winning power, Italy's main
centre-left party is still divided over whether to swallow its
animosity and consider a government with its scandal-plagued
nemesis, Silvio Berlusconi.
Telegraph:
Welt am Sonntag:
- Central
banks in Italy and Spain may be excessively liberal in applying ECB
collateral rules. Central banks systemically applied sovereign rating to
government-guaranteed bank bonds instead of rating for bank that issued the bonds. Banks using government-backed bank bonds as collateral in Italy and Spain have theoretical financing advantage of as much as EU12.4b using that interpretation of which ratings apply.
- France Crisis Risk Underestimated, Economist Mayer Says. French financial securities could be valued with a higher risk premium than Italian ones, based just on fundamental
data, Thomas Mayer, an economic adviser to Deutsche Bank AG, writes.
Market reaction to risk still small, not putting on "necessary pressure
for reforms," he said. Following analysis of current-account balances,
national debt, budget deficits, bank industries, France lags behind in all areas apart from size of financial sector.
Deutschlandfunk:
- Weidmann Sees
EU Crisis Lasting 'Awhile'. Economic crisis build up over a very long
period, and addressing structural causes will also take time, Bundesbank
President Jens Weidmann said today. Bond-purchasing programs only treat symptoms of crisis. "Chain of liability" should be established to protect taxpayer. The crsis will be solved by politicians by addressing structural causes and no through monetary policy.
Der Spiegel:
- ILO Warns Against Growing Social Unrest in EU. International
Labor Organization to present study at Oslo conference tomorrow on
possible public reaction to EU economic crisis. ILO sees 12 percentage
point higher risk of social unrest than before sovereign debt crisis
emerged, with increases particularly pronounced in Cyprus, Greece,
Portugal and Italy.
Jiji Press:
- Japan Issues N. Korea Missile Interception Order.
Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera ordered the Self-Defense
Forces on
Sunday to shoot down what is thought to be a North Korean ballistic
missile or
its debris threatening Japanese territory, government officials said.
Following the order, issued on the basis of the SDF law, the SDF is now
authorized to carry out an interception operation above Japanese
territory or
the high seas.
Xinhua:
- Soros Says Investment in China Properties 'Risky' Now. Apartments
in China are now a risky investment, George Soros, the retired chairman
of Soros Fund Management and founder of Quantum Fund, was quoted as
saying. A lot of empty apartments in China will have to be sold, or
maybe taxed, Soros said. Imposing a property tax would be "very
effective" and may create a crash, Soros was cited as saying.
China Daily:
- China shouldn't loosen regulations on Apple Inc.(AAPL) because
the company has issued an ap0logy to Chinese consumers, citing an
official from the State Administration for Industry and Commerce.
China Securities Journal:
- China should impose taxes on existing homes to ease the impact of
unequal wealth distribution after rapid rise in property prices,
according to a commentary published today written by Jia Kang and Su
Jingchun.
- Beijing will likely raise the down payment requirement to 70% for
buyers taking bank loans for buying second homes, citing people
familiar with the matter.
Weekend Recommendations
Barron's:
- Bullish commentary on (UTX).
Night Trading
- Asian indices are -.75% to +.75% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 121.0 -.5 basis point.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 98.0 +.75 basis point.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.14%.
Morning Preview Links
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
Economic Releases
Upcoming Splits
Other Potential Market Movers
- The Fed's Bernanke speaking, Fed's Pianalto speaking, German industrial production data and China inflation data could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by consumer and automaker shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open modestly higher and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing mixed. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
U.S. Week Ahead by Reuters (video).
Wall St. Week Ahead by Reuters.
Stocks to Watch Monday by MarketWatch.
Weekly Economic Calendar by Briefing.com.
BOTTOM LINE: I expect US stocks to finish the week modestly lower on rising global growth fears, Mideast unrest, Asian tensions, escalating bird flu concerns, more Eurozone
debt angst, earnings worries, profit-taking, technical selling and more
shorting. My intermediate-term trading indicators are giving neutral
signals and the Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
