Today's Headlines
Bloomberg:
- ChemChina $50 Billion Loans Flag New Chapter in China Debt Binge. Just as Moody’s Investors Service warns of the strain on China’s
finances of debt among state-owned enterprises, the companies are
loading up on record overseas loans to buy assets around the world.
China National Chemical Corp. got $50 billion in such financing for its
$43 billion purchase of Swiss pesticides producer Syngenta AG, people
familiar with the matter have said. Loans syndicated offshore for
Chinese firms undertaking acquisitions, including those in the pipeline,
have reached at least $36.3 billion this year, compared with the record
$23.3 billion completed in 2015. Moody’s cut China’s rating outlook to
negative from stable last week, saying state-sector leverage raises
risks of a worse slowdown in economic growth as funds are diverted to
service debt. Among the 38 SOEs with lowered outlooks were conglomerate
CITIC Ltd., plagued by overruns in an Australian mining project, and
Bright Food Group Co., which bought British cereal maker Weetabix Ltd.
in 2012 and whose total debt was 137 percent of equity at end-2014. “Some of the SOEs only focus on growth right now without paying close attention to their
balance sheet,” said Xia Le, chief economist for Asia at Banco Bilbao
Vizcaya Argentaria SA in Hong Kong. “There will be risks for debt
investors down the road. The huge amount of offshore loans the SOEs are
taking on right now will make them vulnerable to changes in macro
conditions and their own operations.”
- Shanghai Property Market Is `Overheated,' Top City Official Says. Shanghai’s most-senior official said the city’s property market has
“overheated” and should be more tightly controlled after a recent surge
in residential housing prices. “An irrational and overheated
sentiment have emerged in the Shanghai real estate market, and these
sentiments have raised home prices," Han Zheng, the city’s Communist
Party chief, said at briefing during annual legislative meetings in
Beijing Sunday. Residential home prices in China’s so-called
first-tier cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenzhen have surged
amid a relaxation of housing curbs intended to boost real estate
investment and increased monetary stimulus from the central bank. New home prices in Shanghai jumped 2.2 percent in January from a month
earlier, while existing home prices increased 2.7 percent from a month
earlier, the most since 2013, according to data from the nation’s
statistics bureau. Last
month, lines of prospective buyers outside property agents’ offices in a
Shanghai suburb clogged roads and forced police to curb traffic to
maintain order, Caixin reported. The frenzy prompted the city government
to issued a call for calm on its official microblog account. Han
said his city would strengthen housing regulations without giving
details on specific measures, saying only that regulations should be
“scientific as housing is a specialty commodity."
- China Growth Addiction Leaves Deleveraging, Reform in Back Seat. Rule
No.1 in China’s blueprint for the next five years: "give top priority
to development." That’s the word from Premier Li Keqiang’s work report
delivered Saturday at the start of the annual National People’s Congress
in Beijing. Li
acknowledged there would be some difficult battles ahead as he outlined
plans to clean up the environment, boost innovation, further urbanize
and cut excess capacity in industries like coal and steel. Yet the
firmest target remains on the one thing he has the least control over --
the nation’s economic growth rate. For 2016, a 6.5 percent to 7
percent growth range was outlined, with 6.5 percent pegged as the
baseline through 2020. That would be less than last year’s 6.9 percent
rate, the slowest growth in a quarter century. To reach the new target,
the government will permit a record high deficit and has raised its
money supply expansion target. The upshot: debt grows even as growth
slows. "The risk is that if
stimulus is accelerated but reform continues to lag, the government
could end the year with growth on target but even bigger structural
problems to deal with," Bloomberg Intelligence economists Tom Orlik and
Fielding Chen wrote in a note. The report "confirms that the focus is
firmly on supporting short-term growth, with the deleveraging can kicked
further down the road."
- Yuan Breaks Four-Day Advance as Leaders Shy Away From Specifics. The yuan snapped a four-day run of gains as China’s leaders refrained
from announcing specific support measures at their biggest gathering of
the year. The nation will push ahead with efforts to make the
yuan more convertible and promote its use overseas over the next five
years, according to a development plan released at the National People’s
Congress on Saturday. The currency will remain stable against a basket
of exchange rates, People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Yi Gang said
on Sunday, using a line that has been repeated by several officials over
the past few months. The currency fell 0.09 percent to 6.5127 a
dollar as of 9:52 a.m. in Shanghai, ignoring the strongest central bank
fixing in two months, according to China Foreign Exchange Trade System
prices. The offshore yuan traded in Hong Kong dropped 0.05 percent to
6.5059. The PBOC raised the currency fixing by 0.26 percent to 6.5113.
- How Hedge Funds Are Getting Around the PBOC's Market Meddling. Hedge
funds with a bearish view on China’s currency are increasingly betting
against yuan proxies instead, after the central bank stepped up efforts
to stabilize the
exchange rate. Colorado’s Crescat Capital is shorting U.S.
exchange-traded funds that track Chinese and South Korean stocks, while
the won and Taiwan’s dollar are among those favored by Hong Kong-based
Bright Stream Capital Management. The exchange rates tend to decline on
negative China sentiment because the nation is their biggest export
market. The need for alternatives to direct bets on the yuan intensified after
China’s central bank burned speculators earlier this year. The monetary
authority drove offshore borrowing costs to record levels by choking the
flow of funds out of the nation, mopping up yuan supplies and
intervening to support the currency. Crescat Capital returned 4.4
percent in January as its bearish ETF bets paid off, while Bright Stream
said its macro fund gained 2.8 percent, helped by short wagers on the
Taiwan dollar and the Korean won.
- Hong Kong Homes Sales Tumble 70% as Slowdown Intensifies. Hong Kong
residential home sales plunged 70 percent in February from a year
earlier to a 25-year low, as falling prices and economic uncertainty
deterred buyers. In February, 1,807 homes were sold in Hong Kong,
compared with 6,027 a year earlier, according to government statistics.
Home sales fell from 2,045 in January, the data show. “The newspapers
keep on saying the market is going down and buyers think
they can get a cheaper house half-a-year later or one year later so are
waiting," said Thomas Fok, a property agent at Centaline Property Agency
in Hong Kong’s upscale Mid-levels West district where he hasn’t made
one sale this year.
- Bad Debts May Rise in Australia. (video)
- Funding Slowdown May Signal Turning Point in Liquidity, BIS Says. A decline in international financing may signal the beginning of a
tightening in global credit markets, according to the Bank of
International Settlements. Outstanding debt securities fell the
most in three years, with repayments surpassing new issuance by $47
billion in the fourth quarter, the Basel, Switzerland-based institution
said in a report published Sunday that cited drops in a raft of measures
of international financing. The decline in outstanding debt was driven
by weak issuance by financial companies in developed economies. The
slowdown may indicate financing is drying up, according to the report,
which highlighted the “uneasy calm” in financial markets in late 2015
amid the prospect of higher Federal Reserve interest rates, slowing
demand from China and plunging commodity prices. The deterioration of
global growth prospects has rattled markets from the start of this year. “These
developments in international bank and securities credit are
significant because they may signal a turning point in global
liquidity,” BIS said in the report. If tighter liquidity conditions
persist, they “may raise stability risks in some countries, especially
those where other indicators already point to a heightened risk of
financial stress.”
- Asian Stocks Swing as Investors Weigh China Goal, U.S. Jobs Data. Asian stocks fluctuated, following the biggest three-week advance
since 2009, as investors weighed China’s move to cut its economic growth
target and a surge in U.S. hiring that boosted optimism in the outlook
for the world’s largest economy. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index was
little changed at 126.31 as of 9:07 a.m. in Tokyo, after swinging
between a gain of 0.3 percent and a loss of less than 0.1 percent.
- Iranian Oil Lands in Europe for First Time Since Sanctions Ended. The Monte Toledo oil tanker covered the uneventful voyage from Iran
to Europe with a haul of one million barrels of crude in just 17 days,
but its journey has been four years in the making. On Sunday, the
tanker became the first to deliver Iranian crude into Europe since
mid-2012, when Brussels imposed an oil embargo in an attempt to force
the Middle Eastern nation to negotiate the end of its nuclear program.
The ban was lifted in January as part of a broader deal that ended a
decade of sanctions.
- Fed Experts Deliver the Bad News: Productivity Slump Is for Real. (video) It’s a paradox that’s been puzzling economists for a while. How can
U.S. productivity growth be slowing down at the same time that
innovation in everything from smartphones to 3D printing seems to be
speeding up? A trio of economists from the Federal Reserve and the
International Monetary Fund think they have the answer and it’s not
particularly pretty. They argue in a new paper that the down-shift in
productivity is for real. It’s not a mirage of mis-measurement by
government statisticians unable to keep up with rapidly changing
technology.
Wall Street Journal:
- China’s Surging Credit Has Some Raising the Caution Flag. China Resources chairman says he is closely watching risks tied to expanding money supply. A credit boom is creating anxiety among executives and economists
over heightened risks in China’s financial system and a wave of soured
loans. China’s slowing economy—whose growth Beijing said
Saturday would be maintained at an average of 6.5% over the next five
years—is compounding a policy conundrum: how to generate lending without
fueling what analysts have already flagged as the return of a
residential property bubble....
- China’s Leaders Put the Economy on Bubble Watch. Beijing aims to spur key sectors as growth slows, but officials are cautious about a buildup of debt. China’s leaders made clear they are emphasizing growth over
restructuring this year, but suggested they are trying to avoid
inflating debt or asset bubbles as they send massive amounts of money
coursing through the economy. The government’s announcement of a
6.5% to 7% growth target for 2016 at the start of the National People’s
Congress over the weekend came with subtle acknowledgment that some of
its efforts to jump-start a...
- Investors Fret as ECB Looks Poised to Get More Negative. Some fear unintended consequences as European Central Bank is expected to cut a key rate further into negative territory. For investors, one question dwarfs all the others this week: How low can you go? The
European Central Bank is expected on Thursday to push a key interest
rate even further into negative territory, a move that is at once widely
anticipated by markets and viewed with trepidation. Analysts and
investors say the ECB’s action likely will drive down government-bond
yields, further reducing borrowing costs that are already near...
- The Scalia Seat: Let the People Speak by Ted Cruz. The legal stakes are higher than ever, and historic precedent favors waiting for a new president. Republicans and Democrats are deeply divided over the proper role of the
Supreme Court. President Obama and Democrats favor justices who see the
Constitution as a potter sees clay—something that can be molded to
achieve their desired results. This has led the Supreme Court to invent
rights that are nowhere in the Constitution—like the right to an
abortion or to same-sex marriage—and ignore or restrict rights that even
nonlawyers can’t miss—like the First and Second Amendments.
- The Trump-Obama Corporate Tax Reform Fail. They both want a minimum tax on the foreign earnings of U.S. companies. That’s no ‘inversion’ cure. Removing the incentive for American companies to move their headquarters
abroad is a widely recognized goal. To do so, the U.S. will need to
join the rest of the G-7 countries and tax business income only once, in
the country where it was earned. Notably, this principle—called
territoriality—is included in the bipartisan framework for international
tax reform developed by Sens. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) and Charles
Schumer (D., N.Y.) in 2015.
Fox News:
- Rubio wins Puerto Rico GOP primary. (video) Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday won the Republican primary in
Puerto Rico, his second victory in the 2016 race, according to the
Associated Press. Twenty-three delegates were up for grabs in Puerto
Rico.
- Nancy Reagan, widow of Ronald Reagan, dead at 94. (video) Nancy Reagan, the widow of President Ronald Reagan and passionately
devoted keeper of his flame, died Sunday morning of congestive heart
failure at 94, according to her spokesperson.
Reagan died at her home in Los Angeles. She's set to
be buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley,
California, next to her husband. Prior to the funeral, there will be an
opportunity for members of the public to pay their respects at the
Library, the spokesperson said. Details had not yet been announced
Sunday afternoon.
- Sanders turns up attacks on Clinton at feisty debate, Dem front-runner fights back. (video) Fresh off a series of weekend victories in state caucuses, Bernie
Sanders turned up the heat on Hillary Clinton at Sunday’s debate in
Flint, Mich., sharply challenging her economic credentials and
suggesting her gun control stand would ban guns in America. But the
Democratic front-runner fought back, blasting him for voting against the
auto bailout, dismissing him as a “one-issue candidate” and hitting him
once again for his stance on guns. The Vermont senator reached back to the 1990s as he
went after Clinton’s support for “disastrous trade agreements” like
NAFTA. His rhetoric was notably more pointed and, reflecting the tension
in the race, Sanders even cut her off at times as she tried to speak
over him. “Excuse me, I’m talking,” Sanders snapped, during one feisty exchange on the economy.
CNBC:
- Fade the bank breakout, don't chase it: Technician. (video)
- Faith in 'healing' central banks has faded: BIS. While financial markets have regained some composure since the start
of the year, mounting global debt levels, sticky growth and the prospect
of long-term negative rates are issues that are not going away anytime
soon, the Bank for International Settlements has warned. Concerns about growth in China and other
emerging market economies and the health of some of the world's largest
banks made for a very difficult start to 2016 for most investors,
resulting in one of the worst stock market sell-offs since the financial
crisis of 2008.
MarketWatch:
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
IBD:
- EU Won’t Reach Its Carbon Goals, It’s Just Another Climate Hypocrite. Fraud: To great fanfare and self-congratulation, the
European Union signed on to the Paris climate treaty in December. But it
won’t be able to keep its promise. Yes, the entire enterprise is a
sham.
The British Guardian reported this week that the “EU is set to emit 2
billion tons more CO2 than it promised at the Paris climate talks,
threatening an agreement to cap global warming at 2C.” Unsurprisingly,
“lawmakers say that the shortfall could spur criticism from other
countries that signed up to the Paris agreement, which aims for net zero
emissions later this century.” As noted by The American Interest, “the
EU was perhaps the most vociferous in its attempt to try and hammer out
an international climate treaty.” But as it turns out, it has
nothing — its leaders are just another bunch of climate hypocrites who
are convinced that if they can act as if they are defending the climate,
others will believe in their moral superiority.
Reuters:
- Delegate tells China parliament stock crisis 'destroying middle class'. A
Shanghai representative to the National People's Congress (NPC) on
Sunday lambasted China's market regulators for igniting a stock crisis
that is "destroying the Chinese middle class", a rare rebuke for
authorities during their biggest annual event. "The ten years of stock
market development since 2007 is a decade of tears for Chinese
investors," Fan Yun, a Shanghai businesswoman said during an open
session at NPC in Beijing. Fan, who has a reputation for being outspoken, laid into Chinese brokerages for failing to educate investors while also blaming
regulators for failing to properly control the margin lending and
alternative credit channels that helped inflate a stock bubble that is still deflating. Views like Fan's are rarely expressed so baldly in official public forums, but they do reflect worries in Shanghai that the city's goal to become a global financial center
to rival Hong Kong and New York by 2020 took a serious setback in 2015,
thanks at least in part to clumsy central intervention by regulators in
Beijing.
Financial Times:
- Bank for International Settlements warns of negative rates risk. Negative
interest rates risk backfiring the longer and more deeply central banks
in Europe and Japan venture into this unconventional monetary policy,
economists from the Bank for International Settlements have warned. The caution over one of the most important experiments in monetary
policy’s history comes before the European Central Bank’s meeting on
March 10. Markets expect the ECB to push its deposit rate deeper into
negative territory — lowering it 10 basis points to minus 0.4 per cent —
to help stave off the threat of deflation.
-
Systemic risk fears over fund manager credit lines. Fears
over systemic risk have been fuelled by some of the world’s largest
asset managers securing billions of dollars in additional credit to help
prevent a run on their funds. The moves have worried international regulators who fear these
borrowing arrangements could exacerbate liquidity problems in the event
of a crisis.
- Fears over US commercial property lending surge. A
surge in commercial property has fuelled the fastest annual expansion
of US banks’ loan books since 2007, a sign of greater confidence that
also raises concerns that lenders are taking on too much risk. Holdings
of commercial real estate loans — an area regulators are
scrutinising closely because of worries about risky lending practices —
jumped about a tenth last year.
Telegraph:
- Debtor days are over as BIS calls time on world credit binge. The
world’s credit boom is beginning to show dangerous signs of
unraveling, ushering in a period of fresh turmoil for the over-indebted
global economy, the Bank of International Settlements has warned. The
globe’s top financial watchdog called time on the world’s debt
binge, noting that debt issuance and cross border flows in emerging
economies slowed for the first time since the aftermath of the global
credit crunch at the end of last year.
- Downfall of Brazil’s Lula marks end of Brics fantasy. The dream of a Brics ascendancy has ended in sadness and squalor after the iconic figure of the era was
seized by police at his home here, to the rapturous applause of
Brazil’s stock exchange.
Night Trading
- Asian indices are -.25% to +.50% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 148.75 +.75 basis point.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 68.25 -1.75 basis points.
- Bloomberg Emerging Markets Currency Index 70.18 +.02%.
- S&P 500 futures -.21%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures -.27%.
Morning Preview Links
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (SUP)/.30
- (NX)/-.12
- (SHAK)/.07
- (THO)/.62
- (UNFI)/.48
- (URBN)/.56
Economic Releases
10:00 am EST
- Labor Market Conditions Index for February is estimated to rise to 1.0 versus .4 in January.
3:00 pm EST
- Consumer Credit for January is estimated to fall to $16.5B versus $21.267B in December.
Upcoming Splits
Other Potential Market Movers
- The
Fed's Fischer speaking, Japan GDP report, Deutsche Bank
Media/Internet/Telecom conference, Cowen Health Care Conference, Sandler
O'Neill Financial Services conference, (AKAM) investor summit and the (NCR) investor day could also impact trading today.
BOTTOM LINE: Asian indices are mostly higher, boosted by commodity and consumer shares in the region. I expect US stocks to open mixed and to weaken into the afternoon, finishing modestly lower. The Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
BOTTOM LINE: I expect US stocks to finish the week modestly lower on earnings outlook concerns, rising European/Emerging Markets/US High-Yield debt angst, commodity weakness, yen strength, global growth fears and technical selling. My intermediate-term trading indicators are giving neutral signals and the Portfolio is 50% net long heading into the week.
Bloomberg:
- China Eases Fiscal Stance to Meet Slower 2016 Growth Target. China unveiled a record fiscal deficit and pledged to accelerate the
restructuring of its bloated state-owned industries while still setting a
weaker growth target for this year. Premier
Li Keqiang announced a
6.5 percent to 7 percent expansion goal Saturday, down from an
objective of about 7 percent last year and the first range the
government has offered since 1995. The government also abandoned its
trade target, underscoring the degree
of uncertainty about prospects for global growth. The details were
given in Li’s work report at the annual meeting of the ceremonial
legislature in Beijing. The plan reflected the government’s determination to maintain growth and put off confronting its debt -- now nearly 250 percent of gross domestic
product. The report also cited downward pressure on the economy against a
backdrop of weaker global growth. "The package of monetary stimulus, higher deficit, and restructuring of
the state sector is a surprisingly coherent response to China’s
downturn," said Andrew Collier, an independent China analyst in Hong
Kong and former president of the Bank of China International USA. "The
problem is there’s a lot of bad lending going on behind the scenes at
the banks that’s slipping through the cracks."
- China Raises 2016 Deficit to 3% as Leaders Seek to Boost Growth. China raised its projected budget deficit for 2016 to 3 percent of
gross domestic product as leaders look to fiscal policy to boost
flagging growth. The projected deficit is up from 2.3 percent of
GDP in 2015, the Finance Ministry said in its 2016 budget. Fiscal
spending for 2015 grew 13.2 percent, exceeding a target of 10.6 percent.
The figures were released on the opening day of the national
legislature’s annual session. Today’s figure had been broadly
flagged in state media as leaders look to revive growth that slowed
to
the weakest pace since 1990 last year. Last month, central bank
officials wrote on the Economic Daily’s website that China has room to
increase its budget deficit to 4 percent of gross domestic product. Concerns
have risen about the ruling Communist Party’s ability to maintain
growth now that debt levels have climbed to 247 percent of GDP and
capital continues to flow out of the country. On March 3, Moody’s
Investors Service lowered China’s credit-rating outlook to negative from
stable.
- China Sets Energy Consumption Cap That Researcher Deems `Loose'. China, the world’s second-largest economy, will seek to cap energy
consumption at a maximum of 5 billion metric tons of standard coal
equivalent by 2020, a ceiling that a researcher says should be easy to
achieve. The target represents a 16 percent increase from 4.3
billion tons in 2015, or growth of about 3.2 percent a year in the
world’s largest consumer of energy. Use expanded 0.9 percent last year,
slowing from a rise of 2.2 percent in 2014 and 5.9 percent in 2010. The
ceiling was contained in the Five-Year Plan for 2016-2020 released at
the annual legislative meeting in Beijing on Saturday.
- Russia Leads List of Oil States at Risk of Moody's Downgrade. The credit ratings of more than 10 oil producing nations in the
developing world were placed on review for a downgrade by Moody’s
Investors Service, which cited the shock of depressed oil prices on
these economies. The list includes Russia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria,
Angola, Gabon and Trinidad and Tobago, according to statements released
by Moody’s on Friday in New York. Five of the six Gulf Cooperation
Council nations -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates,
Bahrain, and Qatar -- were also put on review for a cut, Moody’s said,
adding that it expects to complete its review within two months. The
ratings of Bahrain and Congo were downgraded in addition to being placed
on review, while the credit outlook for Venezuela was lowered to
negative from stable.
- European Close: Euro Faces a Slew of New Hazards. (video)
- EU Migrant Crisis Leaves 10,000 Children Missing, Europol Says. More than 10,000 child refugees have disappeared after arriving in
Europe, according to crime-fighting agency Europol, as the region faces
its worst migrant crisis since World War II. “This is something European police services and governments should be
worried about,” Europol Chief Rob Wainwright said in an interview
Saturday with French newspaper Le Figaro. “Not all are exploited for
criminal purposes -- illegal labor or sexual slavery. Some have left
shelters to reunite with their families, but we have no proof of that.”
Wall Street Journal:
- Saturday’s Presidential Contests — Live Blog.
- At CPAC, Marco Rubio Warns of ‘Hijacked’ Conservative Movement. Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio can’t seem to help himself when it comes to attacking
Donald Trump. Mr. Rubio didn’t mention the Republican front-runner by
name during his remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference
on Saturday, but he worked in plenty of digs, questioning Mr. Trump’s
conservative
convictions and the tone of his campaign. “Being a conservative cannot
simply be about how angry you’re willing
to be or how many names you’re willing to call people,” Mr. Rubio said
at one point.
- The Bank That Makes Its Own Rules. The Fed’s holdings earned $116 billion in interest in 2014—almost $90 billion more than in 2001. The Federal Reserve plays a major—some would say oversize—role in
American life, but it is, for many citizens, a mysterious entity:
Unelected officials pore over reams of data and rely on abstruse models
and theories to set interest rates, regulate banks and otherwise ride
shotgun for our vast and fluid economy. Should we be worried? The Fed
“attracts conspiracists better than most governmental agencies,”
concedes Peter Conti-Brown in “The Power and the Independence of the
Federal Reserve.” To many observers, the Fed is “a dark and brooding
omnipresence that can be accounted for only with nefarious
explanations.”...
- Clinton’s Email Jeopardy. Aides shouldn’t take the fall for her self-serving actions. Hillary Clinton’s Super Tuesday victory gives her a clear path to the
Democratic presidential nomination, but Bernie Sanders has never been
her biggest obstacle to the White House. Her real liability is an email
scandal that has put her in legal jeopardy.
- How Progressives Drive Income Inequality. The Obama years proved
that transfer payments reduce incentives to work and lower incomes. Yet
Clinton and Sanders are eager to go the same route. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are promising all types of programs
to make America a more equal country. That’s no surprise. But when you
look at performance and not rhetoric, the administrations of political
progressives have made the distribution of income more unequal than
their adversaries, who supposedly favor the wealthy.
Barron's:
- Had bullish commentary on (MLM), (BMC) and (MYL).
Fox News:
- Cruz wins Kansas GOP Caucus, five states vote Saturday. (video) Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz won the Kansas Republican Caucus on Saturday, the Associated Press projects.
Forty delegates are at stake in Kansas. "God bless Kansas," Cruz declared during a rally in
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. "The scream you hear, the howl that comes from
Washington D.C., is utter terror at what we the people are doing
together."
He was leading front-runner Donald Trump by more than
a 2-to-1 margin with roughly 70 percent of precints reporting. Florida
Sen. Marco Rubio was in third and Ohio Gov. John Kasich was in fourth,
according to the Associated Press.
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
Gawker:
- Voicemails Reveal Donald Trump’s Cozy Relationship With the Liberal Media. (audio) Early Thursday morning, Gawker received an
anonymous email with an attachment that purported to contain recordings
from Donald Trump’s voicemail inbox. Among the recordings were messages
left for Trump by various celebrities—most notably, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Tamron Hall.
While Gawker was unable to independently verify their authenticity,
the recordings certainly appear to be genuine. In addition to those from
the MSNBC personalities, there were messages from longtime Barack Obama
advisor David Axelrod, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, and
boxing promoter Don King, all of whom spoke to Trump in a friendly and
familiar manner.
Reuters:
Telegraph:
- Debt 'explosion' awaits unless policymakers defuse demographic timebomb, warns IMF chief. People will have to work longer and pay more taxes as ageing populations
put a strain on government finances, according to the managing director
of the International Monetary Fund. Christine Lagarde said the
challenges facing governments this century required a policy overhaul.
Without reforms, the combination of ageing and shrinking
populations would "reduce potential growth in advanced economies by
about 0.2 percentage points in the medium term - and twice as much in
emerging economies," said Ms Lagarde.
