Monday, November 16, 2015

Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:
  • Hollande Calls for United Anti-Terror Front as Police Crack Down. (video) French President Francois Hollande, moving to reassure a nation stunned by its second wave of deadly attacks this year, vowed to increase spending on security, limit constitutional protections and win a war against Islamic terrorism. Last week’s assaults in Paris, which killed at least 129 people, were “planned in Syria, organized in Belgium, and carried out in France,” Hollande told a rare joint session of parliament in Versailles, just outside the capital. He called for a global effort to destroy Islamic State’s base of operations, which “have become the biggest terrorist factory the world has ever known.” The French leader spoke hours after police arrested 23 suspected extremists in a nationwide crackdown and jets dropped bombs on Islamic State’s de-facto capital in Raqqa, Syria. In Belgium, home to most of the assailants who carried out Friday’s violence, police in balaclavas and body armor raided residences in the immigrant-heavy Molenbeek district of Brussels. Echoing George W. Bush after Sept. 11, 2001, Hollande urged French citizens to “keep on working, going out, living.” Hollande said he was ready to breach European Union budget rules to spend whatever is necessary to secure the nation. “The security pact is more important than the stability pact,” he said after promising more money for intelligence services, more police officers and no cuts to the army staff. He said also he will soon propose constitutional revisions to bolster the president’s emergency powers.
  • Paris Terror Threatens Recovery as Tourists Find Doors Shut. (video) With the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and many stores shuttered, Friday’s carnage in Paris risks chilling France’s nascent economic recovery as tourists fret about safety and some executives fear enduring implications for business. What should have been a busy weekend of shopping and sightseeing in the run-up to the holiday season turned eerily quiet after the attacks. A major photography fair closed its doors; U2 and the Foo Fighters scrapped planned Paris concerts; The Eiffel Tower remains closed until further notice. While the disruptions will be temporary, France can scarcely afford any significant interruption in the stream of visitors entering the country. It is the world’s most-popular tourist destination, with foreigners spending over 42 billion euros ($45.3 billion) in 2013, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says. “Everyone seems to be on the brink of crying,” said Ian Plaistowe, a 62-year-old from Yorkshire, England, visiting Paris for a long weekend. “We just have to look at the places we wanted to see from the outside.”
  • Lending by China's Biggest Banks Falls for First Time Since '09. The loans outstanding of China’s four biggest banks declined for the first time since at least 2009, adding to warning signs for a tepid economy. Total loans by the four lenders, including Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., amounted to 35.7 trillion yuan ($5.6 trillion) at the end of October, down 65.6 billion yuan from a month earlier. That’s according to data released Sunday by the People’s Bank of China. “Credit growth is slowing because they are cautious about the economic outlook and asset quality,” said Chen Shujin, an analyst at DBS Vickers Hong Kong Ltd. The banks may also have slowed lending because they’re close to meeting full-year loan targets, the analyst said. Chinese banks’ troubled loans increased to almost 4 trillion yuan by the end of September, according to data released on Thursday night by the China Banking Regulatory Commission. Their profit growth slumped to 2 percent in the first nine months from 13 percent a year earlier.  
  • Brazil Analysts See Double-Digit CPI for First Time in 12 Years. Brazil analysts forecast inflation will exceed the 10 percent threshold by the end of this year for the first time in 12 years as the central bank keeps the benchmark rate on hold. Inflation will accelerate to 10.04 percent by year-end, up from 9.99 percent a week earlier, according to the Nov. 13 central bank survey of about 100 analysts. Consumer price will increase 6.5 percent next year, at the top of the central bank’s target range of 2.5 percent to 6.5 percent.
  • Nomura: The Euro's Parity With the Dollar Might Be Just Around the Corner.   
  • Paris Attacks Deal Fresh Blow to Luxury as Outlook Dims. One of the few shining lights for a struggling luxury-goods industry just dimmed. With demand for lavish clothing and accessories slowing from China to the U.S., brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Hermes have at least been able to count on a flow of free-spending tourists to Europe’s major cities. Friday’s attacks on Paris may change that. “It’s a concern for all business,” said Fabrizio Ferraro, professor of strategic management at IESE Business School in Barcelona. “The key question is how big an impact these events will have on tourist flows. Consumption in the industry in Europe depends on tourism.”
  • Travel Stocks Hit Hard Following Paris Attacks. (video)
  • French Stocks Resilient After Attacks With Market Little Changed. (video) European stock markets showed resilience after Paris suffered the region’s worst terror attacks in more than a decade, with French equities paring declines. The CAC 40 Index closed little changed, trimming a slide of as much as 1.2 percent and briefly climbing 0.3 percent. Energy producers rallied in Europe, offsetting declines in travel shares. That sent the Stoxx Europe 600 Index up 0.3 percent, erasing an earlier drop of as much as 0.8 percent.
  • OPEC Export Price Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009. (video) The average price of crude sold by OPEC fell below $40 a barrel for the first time 2009, underscoring the financial cost of the group’s strategy to defend its market share. The daily OPEC Basket Price fell to $39.21 a barrel on Nov. 13, according to an e-mail on Monday from the organization’s secretariat in Vienna. The basket, an average of export grades from each of the group’s 12 members, typically trades below international oil futures as some OPEC nations pump denser or higher-sulfur crude that’s less profitable to refine.
  • Copper Falls to Six-Year Low After Paris Attack, Codelco Fee Cut. Copper fell to a six-year low as commodities retreated and investors bought haven assets such as gold following the terror attacks in Paris. Signs of weak demand for metals in China, the world’s biggest consumer, also hurt prices. The violence in the French capital renewed worries about political and economic risk, prompting investors to buy assets such as gold, U.S. Treasuries and European government bonds. Concerns metals demand is ebbing deepened as Codelco, the biggest copper producer, cut its surcharge for sales to China by 26 percent next year, according to two buyers. The reduction highlighted waning consumption in the Asian country. “You have a confluence of economic and political influences at work,” Michael Turek, the head of base metals at BGC Partners Inc. in New York, said in an e-mail. “Obviously the tragic developments in Paris have caused a capital flight out of metal and into safety. Secondly, collapsing physical premiums for metal being imported into China really underscores how anemic demand is there.” Copper futures for December delivery dropped 2.6 percent to $2.111 a pound at 11:02 a.m. on the Comex in New York, after falling to $2.1095, the lowest since May 2009.
  • Ramsey the Bear, Who Called S&P 500 Decline, Sends Warning. Doug Ramsey, whose bearish research foreshadowed the U.S. stock market’s first correction since 2011, says the rebound that has lifted equities since August doesn’t mean the mispricings that drove the rout have gone away. If anything they’re worse, according to the chief investment officer of Leuthold Weeden Capital Management LLC, who says valuations are higher than when the selloff began because of deteriorating revenue and profits. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index is trading for 1.8 times sales, about where it was in August, while industrial stocks last week were priced at 20 times earnings, the most in more than a decade. 
  • Cliff Asness Says Hedge Fund Managers Don't `Hedge' Enough. Cliff Asness, co-founder and managing principal of investment firm AQR Capital Management, said hedge funds don’t protect enough against potential market losses and reiterated that the industry charges clients too much. “They don’t hedge enough,” Asness said in a "Bloomberg " television interview with Stephanie Ruhle and David Westin on Monday. “Over time, what they are supposed to do is hedge market risk. And they are supposed to do it at a reasonable price.
  • Clinton's Wall Street Donors Say More Than 9/11 Built Their Bond. The venture capitalist and Hillary Clinton bundler Alan Patricof was sitting in the audience at Saturday’s Democratic debate in Iowa when the former New York senator started raising her voice and pointing with her right hand. "I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked,” Clinton said, after rival presidential candidate Bernie Sanders criticized her ties to bankers. "Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy. And it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.” The line triggered rage on Twitter, spite from her rivals and surprise among allies. Patricof, co-founder and managing director of Greycroft LLC, wasn’t sure what to make of Clinton’s suggestion that she has a good relationship with the financial industry because of terrorism. “I was confused,” he said Sunday. “I didn’t quite understand.” The way he and Clinton’s other Wall Street supporters see it, the connections that bind them are long, deep and nothing to be embarrassed about.
  • Clovis Oncology(CLVS) Falls 73 Percent After FDA Asks for More Data on Cancer Drug.
  • SunEdison(SUNE) - Now with $739 Million in Extra Recourse Debt? Analysts debate solar-powered subordination. 
  • Dillard's(DDS) Becomes Latest Victim of U.S. Department-Store Slump. Dillard’s Inc. tumbled as much as 12 percent in New York trading after posting disappointing earnings, adding to concern that the U.S. department-store industry is mired in a slump.
Wall Street Journal:
Fox News:
  • Obama: Paris terror rampage a ‘setback’. (video) Three days after teams of Islamic State terrorists brazenly carried out raids across Paris that left 129 people dead, President Obama labeled the slaughter a "setback" in responding to questions about his policies. "There will be setbacks and there will be successes. The terrible events in Paris were obviously a terrible and sickening setback," Obama said Monday.
  • Live blog: Terror attack in Paris.
CNBC:
Zero Hedge:
Business Insider:
@Breaking911: 
Washington Post:
Reuters:
  • CIA chief warns Islamic State may have other attacks ready. CIA Director John Brennan on Monday warned that the attacks in Paris were not a “one-off event” and that the Islamic State may already be preparing similar operations. “I would anticipate that this is not the only operation that ISIL has in the pipeline,” Brennan said in a speech to a policy institute, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “And security intelligence services right now in Europe and other places are working feverishly to see what else they can do in terms of uncovering it.”
MACRO Business:
  • Housing sentiment is crashing. (graph) The Westpac Melbourne Institute House Price Expectations Index also fell further, down 7.9% in Nov to be materially below its long run average.
Xinhua:
  • China Warns of Risks From High-Yielding Schemes. Schemes with promises of high yields under the name of "financial mutual-aid" appeared in many regions recently, citing a warning note issued by regulators including PBOC and CBRC.
Caixin:
  • China Has Unprecedented Difficulty to Stabilize Growth. China faces dilemma of effective monetary policy and ensuring financial stability, Pan Hongsheng, official at PBOC's monetary policy debt., writes in Caixin. China faces severe challenge in preventing regional and systemic financial risks, he said.

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