Today's Headlines

Bloomberg: 

• Varoufakis: Grexit Would Be Beginning of End for Euro Project. "Once you infuse into investors mind that the euro is not indivisible, it will only be a matter of time before the whole thing begins to unravel," Greek Finance Minister Yannis Varoufakis says on Sunday in interview on BBC's "Andrew Marr Show." "Once you are in a monetary union, getting out of it is catastrophic," he said. 

• Biggest Debt Collector in Europe Says Crisis Rates Not Helping. The head of Europe’s biggest debt collector says the historic wave of stimulus spilling out of central banks has failed to fuel investment growth. Lars Wollung, the chief executive officer of Intrum Justitia AB, warned that record-low interest rates “don’t seem to lead to investments that create jobs,” in an interview in Stockholm. “A rate that is too low, or a rate that many of us have never experienced, is so extraordinary that it doesn’t create any stability or faith in the future at all,” he said. “Rather the opposite: one feels insecure and waits with expansion plans and to hire more people.”

• Putin Signs Law Allowing Clampdown on Foreign NGO Groups. President Vladimir Putin signed legislation allowing prosecutors to deem foreign or global non-government organizations as “undesirable” in Russia, drawing immediate criticism from the U.S. and European Union. The prosecutor-general may assign the label to international NGOs that “threaten Russia’s constitutional order, defense potential or security,” according to the law signed last night. Such organizations lose rights to publish media materials, organize rallies and use local bank accounts.

• Saudi King Vows to Punish Perpetrators of Mosque Attack. Saudi King Salman vowed to punish those responsible for a suicide attack on Shiite-Muslim worshippers, describing it as “heinous crime” that killed innocent people in the kingdom’s oil-rich Eastern Province. “Every participant, planner, supporter, collaborator, or sympathizer with this heinous crime will be held accountable, tried and punished,” King Salman said in a statement on the official Saudi Press Agency. “Our efforts will never stop at any time from fighting the deviant thought.”

• Dubai Stocks Lead Mideast Declines as Real Estate Shares Drop. Real estate and construction companies dragged Dubai’s stocks to the lowest in five weeks as gauges across the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council retreated. Dubai’s DFM General Index lost 1.7 percent to close at 4,049.98, pulled lower by a 2 percent decrease in the Dubai Financial Market Real Estate Index. Emaar Properties PJSC, the developer with the biggest weighting on the gauge, dropped the most since May 4.

Wall Street Journal:

• Defense Secretary Opens Possibility to Strategy Shift on Iraq. Ash Carter’s gives withering critique of Iraqi defense forces over Islamic State’s capture of Ramadi. Defense Secretary Ash Carter held open the possibility of a strategy shift by the White House on Iraq, a few days after recent setbacks in Iraq and Syria revived sharp criticism of the Obama administration’s approach in combating extremist groups there. Islamic State forces last week captured the key Iraqi city of Ramadi and also expanded...

Fox News: 

• Congressional Dems, Republicans agree Obama's Islamic State strategy is now, at best, stuck in neutral. Top congressional Democrats and Republicans agreed Sunday that President Obama is not winning the fight against the Islamic State, with one of his top House supporters acknowledging a “stalemate” at best. The criticism from Hawaii Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard was not unexpected following the Islamic State last week taking over the Iraq city of Ramadi, then pushing into the Syrian city of Palmyra. “Clearly ISIS has gained momentum … as we’ve seen the ground that they have gained both in Iraq and Syria,” Gabbard, an Army combat veteran who has criticized Obama for not calling Islamic State “Islamic extremists,” told CNN’s “State of the Union.”

ZeroHedge:

• Never Forget The Price Of Freedom.

• Grexit "Disaster" Looms As Greek Hospitals Run Out Of Sheets, Painkillers.

• Game Theory Pioneer John Nash, Wife, Killed In Taxi Crash.

• Drilling Efficiency To Keep Oil Prices Low.

• The Fed's Perilous "Fake It Till You Make It" Strategy May Be Coming Home To Roost.

• Greece Is On The Ragged Edge: Bloodied Idealogues Vs. Bloodthirsty Technocrats.

• We Have Entered The Mania Phase: Market Complacency Has Never Been Higher. (graph)

Business Insider:

• My life inside the luxury real estate.

• Saudi-led warplanes launched a fresh wave of air strikes across Yemen.

• Protests erupt in Cleveland after an officer was acquitted in the shooting deaths of two unarmed suspects.

• 'The political game has changed' in Europe.

• Obamacare may force some insurers to raise their premiums to an alarming level.

• Elizabeth Warren is calling for public hearings on banks.

Financial Times: 

• China brokers’ capital rush fuels margin-fed rally. China’s brokers have raised more capital this year than in the past three combined — and more than half the $14bn proceeds are being ploughed straight back into financing the equity boom that enabled them to tap the markets in the first place. The frenzied rallies in Shanghai and Shenzhen this year have been largely fuelled by margin lending where loans to invest in the market are secured against the stocks purchased.

Telegraph: 

• Greece to miss IMF payments amid fears of 'catastrophic' eurozone rupture. A Greek reversion to the Drachma would be an irreversible "disaster" for the entire euro project, Yanis Varoufakis warns. 

• HSBC fears world recession with no lifeboats left. The world authorities have run out of ammunition as rates remain stuck at zero. They have no margin for error as economy falters. 

El Pais:

• Summers Tells El Pais Spain to Be In Crisis Until End of Decade. Larry Summers, former chief economic adviser to President Obama, tells El Pais that Spain and the rest of the periphery of Europe will remain in crisis until the end of the decade. Summers says "flirting" with Greek exit involves taking on enormous risks.

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg: 

• Greece Won't Accept Unreasonable Creditor Demands, Tsipras Says. Greek economy can't take more recessionary measures, govt won't agree on deal that doesn't solve country's problems, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras says in speech in Athens on Saturday. Greek govt accepts that social security system needs overhaul, this can't be done through pension cuts. 
• Tsipras Urges European Creditors to Compromise on Greek Deal. Greek society can’t absorb more austerity, and the country’s creditors must compromise to break the impasse over the release of funds for its cash-strapped economy, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said. Tsipras sought to placate critics within his Syriza party after returning from a European Union summit in Riga, Latvia, where talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande failed to yield a breakthrough on measures to unlock bailout funding. Some members of his party advocate defaulting on loans rather than backing down from the anti-austerity policies that swept it to power in January even if that leads the country out of the euro. “We’ve shown willingness to compromise to get to a mutually beneficial solution,” Tsipras said in a speech at the start of a two-day meeting of Syriza’s central committee on Saturday. “But we ask from our partners the same respect and to also make concessions.”
• Central Bank Less-Is-More Strategy Doubted as ECB Role Debated. The time has come for central bankers to think about widening their focus, economists told monetary-policy makers gathering on the western edge of the euro area. For more than two decades, the dominant reasoning has been that by concentrating mostly, or even exclusively, on keeping inflation in check, central banks can create the conditions for sustainable growth and lower unemployment. Since the financial crisis, the advantages of aiming just at price stability may be waning, and leading economists are calling for a rethink. “The pendulum has swung much too far. While monetary policies are surely not determinative of output outcomes, they can, and in some cases had, have major effects on average levels of output over periods of decades,” Larry Summers, former chief economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, said on Friday. “The failure to well integrate monetary policy-making with other areas of policy has had substantial pernicious effects.”
• Coal’s Worst Fear Affirmed in Analysis of Obama Climate Plan. A new government analysis of President Barack Obama’s signature effort to fight climate change affirms what critics suspected: the proposal could further weaken an already battered coal industry. Electricity generation from the carbon-intensive fossil fuel would fall by 90 gigawatts, more than twice the decline government analysts had predicted as recently as April, according to a report released Friday by the Energy Information Administration. There were about 292 gigawatts of coal-fired generation capacity in 2014, according to EIA. 
• GM Ignition Probe Said Advancing as U.S. Mulls Criminal Charges. The U.S. government is determining whether charges will be brought against General Motors Co. or its employees over the handling of a faulty ignition switch, a person familiar with the investigation said. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in New York, is reviewing evidence tied to the safety defect that was linked to more than 100 deaths, and attempting to determine whether anyone at the automaker broke the law, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.
• Square Joins Tech Firms Subleasing San Francisco Offices. San Francisco, where the technology industry has dominated office demand and sent rents soaring, leads the U.S. in sublease space as a percentage of total vacancies, according to Cushman & Wakefield Inc. The share jumped to 13.5 percent in the first quarter, the highest since the financial crisis, from 9 percent a year ago. While the city’s commercial real estate market is among the nation’s strongest, subletting can be an indicator of companies getting too ambitious about their growth prospects. An increase in subleases can be seen as an early warning sign for the real estate market that companies are retrenching. A bubble has formed in San Francisco that has made price gains unsustainable, said Glenn Kelman, chief executive officer of brokerage Redfin Corp. “There’s a bubble,” Kelman said in an interview Friday on Bloomberg Television. “There are prices that are too high on companies. There are prices that are too high on real estate. As interest rates go up, you’re going to see a contraction.” Prices for both commercial and residential real estate in San Francisco have climbed so far that companies are evaluating locations in other cities to lower costs, Kelman said.

Wall Street Journal:

• NSA Begins Wind-Down of Phone-Record Program. Lack of Senate deal prompts agency to begin phasing out sweeps of bulk phone data.

ZeroHedge:

• 5 Things To Ponder: Everybody's Got One. (graph)
• Clinton Benghazi E-mails Released, Show "Sensitive" Information Was Sent From Personal Server.
• It Is Mathematically Impossible To Pay Off All Of Our Debt. (graph)
• "Strongly Dissatisfied" China Warns US "Accident" Is "Highly Likely" In South China Sea.
• Junk-Rated Chicago Has A Billion Dollar Pension Problem.
• Bank Of England Accidentally E-mails Top-Secret Brexit Plan To Newspaper.
• Hillary Clinton's Speech Requirements: Private Jets, Presidential Suites And Lots Of Cash.
• Traders Are Buying Gold & Silver At Fastest Pace In Over A Decade. (graph)
• These Are The 50 Top Hedge Fund Long And Short Positions.
• ISIS: Mapping A Militant Expansion. (map)
• Time To Get Real About China.

Business Insider:

• Time is running out for struggling oil companies.
• Amazon(AMZN) is launching an Etsy(ETSY) killer.
• GM(GM) could be held criminally liable for deaths related to its massive ignition recall.
• US farmers have been forced to kill nearly 40 million birds because of avian flu.
• BlackBerry(BBRY) cuts more jobs as it changes its focus from phones.
• Emails show Hillary's staff was worried Benghazi would make her look bad.
• John Kerry keeps playing right into Putin's hand.
• Why Assad keeps dropping gas bombs on Syrian civilians.
• Five global banks just proved that no one can stop Wall Street from breaking the law.
• Saudi Arabia is on edge after ISIS suicide bombing.
• It's been 3 1/2 years since the last 10% correction ...
• Russia: If Ukraine defaults, expect a hard line from us.
• Mexico just witnessed one of the bloodiest drug cartel versus government shootouts in a decade.

Market Week in Review

• S&P 500 2,126.06 +.16%*

The Weekly Wrap by Briefing.com.

*5-Day Change

Weekly Scoreboard*

Indices

• S&P 500 2,126.06 +.16%

• DJIA 18,232.02 -.22%

• NASDAQ 5,089.36 +.81%

• Russell 2000 1,252.22 +.67%

• S&P 500 High Beta 35.39 +.09% 

• Goldman 50 Most Shorted 143.65 +2.52% 

• Wilshire 5000 22,230.20 +.25%

• Russell 1000 Growth 1,021.48 +.23%

• Russell 1000 Value 1,039.93 +.16%

• S&P 500 Consumer Staples 504.66 -1.15%

• Solactive US Cyclical 140.21 -.72%

• Morgan Stanley Technology 1,054.23 +.36%

• Transports 8,482.31 -2.29%

• Utilities 588.13 +.41%

• Bloomberg European Bank/Financial Services 121.65 +2.01%

• MSCI Emerging Markets 42.65 -.43%

• HFRX Equity Hedge 1,226.54 +.58%
• HFRX Equity Market Neutral 989.16 -.16%

Sentiment/Internals

• NYSE Cumulative A/D Line 241,065 -.22%

• Bloomberg New Highs-Lows Index 53 -115

• Bloomberg Crude Oil % Bulls 40.0 +73.31%

• CFTC Oil Net Speculative Position 320,212 -1.69%
• CFTC Oil Total Open Interest 1,731,678 -1.05%

• Total Put/Call .87 +4.82%

• OEX Put/Call 5.82 +500.0%

• ISE Sentiment 134.0 +48.89%

• NYSE Arms 1.17 +21.87%

• Volatility(VIX) 12.13 -2.02%

• S&P 500 Implied Correlation 59.46 -6.87%

• G7 Currency Volatility (VXY) 9.79 +7.94%

• Emerging Markets Currency Volatility (EM-VXY) 9.05 -3.83%

• Smart Money Flow Index 17,716.74 +.50%

• ICI Money Mkt Mutual Fund Assets $2.610 Trillion +.80%
• ICI US Equity Weekly Net New Cash Flow -$5.062 Billion

• AAII % Bulls 25.2 -5.7%
• AAII % Bears 25.0 -5.2%

Futures Spot Prices

• CRB Index 222.56 -2.55%

• Crude Oil 59.72 -.40%

• Reformulated Gasoline 205.39 -.03%

• Natural Gas 2.89 -4.31%

• Heating Oil 195.25 -2.71%

• Gold 1,204.0 -1.55%

• Bloomberg Base Metals Index 172.78 -3.43%

• Copper 281.10 -4.03%

• US No. 1 Heavy Melt Scrap Steel 231.67 USD/Ton +.58%
• China Iron Ore Spot 59.96 USD/Ton -2.2%

• Lumber 273.80 +8.48%

• UBS-Bloomberg Agriculture 1,077.58 -2.42%

Economy

• ECRI Weekly Leading Economic Index Growth Rate 1.5% +30.0 basis points

• Philly Fed ADS Real-Time Business Conditions Index -.2684 +6.83%

• S&P 500 Blended Forward 12 Months Mean EPS Estimate 124.47 +.24%

• Citi US Economic Surprise Index -62.10 +9.5 points

• Citi Eurozone Economic Surprise Index -11.10 -13.0 points

• Citi Emerging Markets Economic Surprise Index -15.20 -1.2 points

• Fed Fund Futures imply 58.0% chance of no change, 42.0% chance of 25 basis point cut on 6/17

• US Dollar Index 96.10 +2.99%

• Euro/Yen Carry Return Index 139.83 -1.95%

• Yield Curve 159.0 -1.0 basis point

• 10-Year US Treasury Yield 2.21% +8.0 basis points

• Federal Reserve's Balance Sheet $4.442 Trillion -.45%

• U.S. Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap 16.39 +1.31%

• Illinois Municipal Debt Credit Default Swap 227.0 -1.47%

• Western Europe Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap Index 21.69 -.39%

• Asia Pacific Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap Index 58.31 -1.83%
  

• Emerging Markets Sovereign Debt CDS Index 304.85 -.56%
  

• Israel Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap 65.50 +.77%

• Iraq Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap 342.28 -1.45%

• Russia Sovereign Debt Credit Default Swap 289.92 -3.84%

• iBoxx Offshore RMB China Corporates High Yield Index 119.53 +.52%

• 10-Year TIPS Spread 1.90% +4.0 basis points

• TED Spread 27.25 +.75 basis point

• 2-Year Swap Spread 26.25 unch.

• 3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -20.75 -2.0 basis points

• N. America Investment Grade Credit Default Swap Index 63.79 +.77%

• America Energy Sector High-Yield Credit Default Swap Index 1,090.0 +3.22%

• European Financial Sector Credit Default Swap Index 73.70 +.79%
  

• Emerging Markets Credit Default Swap Index 286.16 -1.31%
  

• CMBS AAA Super Senior 10-Year Treasury Spread  to Swaps 87.50 unch.

• M1 Money Supply $2.978 Trillion -1.72%

• Commercial Paper Outstanding 964.10 -2.90%

• 4-Week Moving Average of Jobless Claims 2766,250 -5,500

• Continuing Claims Unemployment Rate 1.6% -10 basis points

• Average 30-Year Mortgage Rate 3.84% -1.0 basis point
• Weekly Mortgage Applications 406.50 -1.45%

• Bloomberg Consumer Comfort 42.4 -1.1 points

• Weekly Retail Sales +2.0% -10 basis points

• Nationwide Gas $2.74/gallon +.05/gallon

• Baltic Dry Index 592.0 -6.62%

• China (Export) Containerized Freight Index 891.69 +1.88%

• Oil Tanker Rate(Arabian Gulf to U.S. Gulf Coast) 50.0 +25.0%
• Rail Freight Carloads 280,107 +.90%

Best Performing Style

• Small-Cap Growth +1.2%

Worst Performing Style

• Small-Cap Value +.1%

Leading Sectors

• Hospitals +4.4%

• Biotech +2.4%

• Gaming +2.1%

• HMOs +1.9%

• Semis +1.5%

Lagging Sectors

• Alt Energy -1.9% 

• Coal -3.6%

• Steel -5.0%

• Gold & Silver -5.2%

• Airlines -6.6%

Weekly High-Volume Stock Gainers (13)

• SRPT, DY, ANN, GNCA, RRGM, KE, TTWO, HMHC, NSTG, ASNA, UVV, RVNC and AAP

Weekly High-Volume Stock Losers (12)

• DDS, KEYS, RXN, BRKR, BAH, NTAP, SSI, URBN, ETSY, FGEN, LOCO and DRNA

Weekly Charts
ETFs

• High-Volume Gainers

• High-Volume Losers

Stocks

• High-Volume Gainers

• High-Volume Losers

*5-Day Change

Stocks Slightly Lower into Final Hour on Fed Rate Hike Fears, Eurozone/Emerging Markets Debt Angst, Earnings Concerns, Road & Rail/Construction Sector Weakness

Broad Equity Market Tone:

• Advance/Decline Line: Lower
  

• Sector Performance: Most Sectors Declining
  

• Volume: Below Average

• Market Leading Stocks: Performing In Line

Equity Investor Angst:

• Volatility(VIX) 11.99 -.99%

• Euro/Yen Carry Return Index 139.77 -.54%

• Emerging Markets Currency Volatility(VXY) 9.06 -1.63%

• S&P 500 Implied Correlation 59.90 -1.27%

• ISE Sentiment Index 140.0 +25.0%

• Total Put/Call .88 -6.38%

• NYSE Arms 1.02 +16.26% 

Credit Investor Angst:

• North American Investment Grade CDS Index 63.79 +.63%

• America Energy Sector High-Yield CDS Index 1,090.0 -1.48%

• European Financial Sector CDS Index 73.66 +2.86%

• Western Europe Sovereign Debt CDS Index 21.68 -.87%

• Asia Pacific Sovereign Debt CDS Index 58.31 +.02%

• Emerging Market CDS Index 286.13 +1.26%
  

• iBoxx Offshore RMB China Corporates High Yield Index 119.53 -.03%

• 2-Year Swap Spread 26.25 -.25 basis point

• TED Spread 27.25 +.25 basis point

• 3-Month EUR/USD Cross-Currency Basis Swap -20.75 -1.5 basis points

Economic Gauges:

• 3-Month T-Bill Yield .01% unch.

• Yield Curve 159.0 -2.0 basis points

• China Import Iron Ore Spot $59.96/Metric Tonne +3.54%

• Citi US Economic Surprise Index -62.1 +3.2 points

• Citi Eurozone Economic Surprise Index -11.10 +.6 point

• Citi Emerging Markets Economic Surprise Index -15.2 -1.4 points

• 10-Year TIPS Spread 1.90 +3.0 basis points

Overseas Futures:

• Nikkei 225 Futures: Indicating +135 open in Japan 
• China A50 Futures: Indicating +158 open in China

• DAX Futures: Indicating +9 open in Germany

Portfolio: 

• Slightly Lower: On losses in my retail sector longs and emerging markets shorts

• Disclosed Trades: Covered some of my (IWM)/(QQQ) hedges

• Market Exposure: Moved to 75% Net Long

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg: 

• Merkel Stamps Out Optimism on Greece After Tsipras Talks. (video) German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that greater efforts are needed to unlock bailout funds for Greece after late-night negotiations with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras failed to yield any sign of a breakthrough. With time running out for a deal to free up the remaining 7.2 billion-euro ($8 billion) tranche of aid, Merkel’s discussions in Latvia with Tsipras and French President Francois Hollande broke up in the early hours of Friday with an agreement only to keep talking. Tsipras talked of a resolution “soon,” whereas Merkel said there’s “a whole lot to do.”
• Greek Banks Face Contingency Plans as Crisis Threatens. The European Commission is preparing contingency plans for the Greek banking system in the event government leaders fail to agree to a deal to help the indebted nation, according to two people familiar with the talks. Officials are looking at how to manage the failure of financial firms in Greece and other events that may cause widespread investor losses, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified as the discussions are private.
• German Business Confidence Declines as Risks Cloud Outlook. German business confidence fell for the first time in seven months in May, signaling caution over the growth outlook for Europe’s largest economy. The Ifo institute’s business climate index dropped to 108.5 from 108.6 in April. That still beat the median estimate of 108.3, and an earlier report showed German capital investment increased at the fastest pace in a year last quarter. 
• Brazil Boosts Taxes on Banks Before Rolling Out Budget Cuts. Brazil is stepping up efforts to shrink a widening budget gap by raising taxes on banks and preparing to freeze spending. Banks, brokerages and credit-card processors among others will pay a 20 percent tax on profit, up from 15 percent, according to a presidential decree published in the official gazette on Friday. The measure, which becomes effective Sept. 1, will boost tax collection by about 750 million reais ($244 million) in 2015 and 3.8 billion reais next year, according to the tax agency.
• JPMorgan(JPM): Something Has Gone Wrong With the Global Consumer. What to make of a global slowdown in retail sales. "It would be difficult to overstate the recent downside surprise in global consumer spending," writes JPMorgan Senior Global Economist Joseph Lupton. Though retail sales in the U.S. have missed expectations for five consecutive months, disappointing consumer spending is far from just a made-in-the-USA story, he observes.  
• European Stocks Near Three-Week High as DAX Falls With Euro Up. European stocks were little changed, posting their biggest weekly gain since mid-April. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slipped less than 0.1 percent to 407.74 at the close of trading in London, trimming a decline of as much as 0.4 percent.
• Iron Ore Completes Second Weekly Loss as Producers Expand Supply. Iron ore capped a second weekly decline on concern that rising output from the world’s largest producers will exceed demand from China and widen a global surplus. Ore with 62 percent content delivered to Qingdao dropped 2.2 percent this week to $59.96 a dry metric ton, according to Metal Bulletin Ltd. While the price jumped 3.5 percent on Friday, it remains 69 percent below a record $191.70 in 2011. 
• Risky Loans Shunned by Banks Are Booming in Wall Street's Shadow. Regulators’ efforts to rein in Wall Street’s biggest banks are in danger of backfiring. Guidelines aimed at strengthening lending standards are shifting the market for high-yield credit to less-supervised loan funds, raising alarm this week from the Financial Stability Oversight Council. Because the funds don’t have depositors, some of their money comes from Wall Street banks, leaving systemically important institutions exposed to risks regulators hoped to avoid.
• Inflation Closer to Fed’s Goal After Core Prices Advance. The U.S. cost of living excluding what households pay for food and fuel climbed more than forecast in April, indicating inflation is gravitating toward the Federal Reserve’s goal. The core consumer-price index rose 0.3 percent, the biggest gain since January 2013 and reflecting broad-based increases, a Labor Department report showed Friday. In the last three months, core inflation advanced an annualized 2.6 percent, the most since August 2011. Including food and fuel, the gauge was up a more moderate 0.1 percent as prices fell at grocery stores and gas stations. Costs may continue to firm as fuel expenses rebound, apartment rents climb and health-care services become more expensive.

Wall Street Journal:

• Huatai Collects More Fuel for China Stock-Market Fire. Huatai Securities’ Hong Kong IPO continues a barrage of brokerage fundraising that’s looking long in the tooth. It’s hard not to look at all the cash raised by brokers, along with the massive increase in margin lending provided by those brokers, and conclude there’s a self-reinforcing phenomenon at work. This week, for the first time, margin lending outstanding breached 2 trillion yuan ($322 billion)—five times the level of a year ago.

Fox News:

• State Department releases 1st batch of Clinton emails. (video) The State Department has released 296 emails from Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, in the first batch of emails to be made public. The emails, just a fraction of what the department has in its custody, show internal communications before and after the Benghazi terror attack in 2012. One email to Clinton, regarding one of then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's TV appearances the Sunday after the attack, appeared to praise her for reflecting their "view" that the attack was "spontaneous."

CNBC: 

• Yellen: Rate hike appropriate this year if economy improves. (video)
• 7 major housing markets now 'overvalued'. (video)
• Microsoft(MSFT), Salesforce(CRM) talks fizzled over price: Sources. (video)

ZeroHedge:

• Oil Prices Unmoved By Oil Rig Count Decline Of Just 1. (graph)
• JPMorgan Officially Apologizes For Being A Criminal Market Manipulator.
• Dear FBI: Here Is Today's Market Manipulation. (graph)
• Wall Street R.I.P. - The Bubble Is Dying At The Zero Bound. (graph)
• Why The US Consumer Is About To be Crushed: The Obamacare Inflationary Deluge Arrives. (graph)
• Core Consumer Prices Jump Most Since March 2006 Thanks To Surging Healthcare Costs. (graph)
• Two Ominous Stock Market Charts. (graph)
• Meanwhile, Mass Layoffs Continue For America's Miners.
• US Department Of Commerce Officially Jumps The Shark, Will "Double Seasonally Adjust" GDP Data.

Business Insider: 

• Turns out the former Chinese billionaire whose solar company just imploded was shorting his own stock.
• Here are 7 things to take away from Janet Yellen's speech on Friday.
• These maps show what ISIS has achieved in the last year.
• Russians seized in Ukraine: We were following Moscow's orders.
• John Deere(DE) warns the farming business is about to go from bad to worse.

Reuters:

• Funny times in China stocks, joke unclear: James Saft. Many things about China stocks are funny, but probably not right now to investors in Hanergy Thin Film Power Group, Goldin Financial Holdings or Goldin Properties Holdings. The three Hong Kong-listed shares, which had all increased in price several-fold in recent months, tumbled over the past two trading days in spectacular fashion. Solar company Hanergy's market value melted by $19 billion in scarcely more minutes on Wednesday, tumbling 47 percent on no news before the stock was suspended. Thursday brought similar tumbles in the linked Goldin companies, which fell more than 40 percent each, slashing their value by $23 billion. Goldin Financial is a short-term commercial lender but has wide-ranging property interests, while Goldin Properties is a developer.

Telegraph: 

• IMF rules out 'quick and dirty' Greek deal as Juncker warns of Grexit 'indignity'. Christine Lagarde says she will not sign off on a piecemeal deal for cash-strapped Greece.