Liquidity
Trap Hitting AAA Bonds Has ATP CEO Sounding Alarm - (www.bloomberg.com) Carsten
Stendevad, chief executive officer of Denmark’s biggest pension fund, says some
of the world’s biggest bond markets are becoming dangerously illiquid. Overseeing
$130 billion in assets, the 41-year-old former Citigroup Inc. (C) banker is urging policy makers to take
seriously evidence that even the safest assets are getting harder to offload
amid tighter regulatory requirements. He says ATP struggled to find buyers for
about 7 billion euros ($9.7 billion) in German government
bonds at
the end of last year. “It was amazing,” Stendevad said in an interview in his
office north of Copenhagen. “One of the world’s biggest banks, which before
2008 would have been able to trade any quantity of German government bonds at
any time of day, was not even willing to offer a quote for a reasonable size.”
Retired
doctor: VA chief is lying - (www.cnn.com) The
top officials at the Phoenix VA denied any existence of a secret waiting list
in an in-depth interview with CNN on Tuesday, and they denied that delays in
care caused the deaths of U.S. veterans at the facility. But only hours after
making these denials, the top VA physician who first appeared on CNN and
brought the allegations to light declared that the VA officials are lying and
that they are covering up what has happened in Phoenix. Several other
off-record sources inside the Phoenix VA agreed with Dr. Sam Foote. Sources
told CNN the managers at the VA concocted an elaborate scheme to cover up long
wait times there. The sources said more than 1,400 vets were placed on the
purported secret list and that documents were shredded to hide the evidence.
According to sources, at least 40 U.S veterans died waiting for care at the
facility, many of whom were on the list.
Junk
Loans Pulled as Buyers Say No After Fed Voices Worry - (www.bloomberg.com) The
tide is turning in the market for speculative-grade loans as investors refuse
to buy some deals deemed too risky. Rocket Software Inc. pulled $725 million of
loans from the market this week that would have refinanced debt and paid for a
dividend to its co-founders and private-equity firm Court Square Capital
Partners LP, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The deal is at least the
third to be withdrawn in the last month, with cable TV provider WideOpenWest
Finance LLC canceling $1.97 billion in loans and Dutch LLC, which does business
as women’s apparel company Joie, scrapping a $200 million debt offering. The
loan market is starting to show signs of tightening more than six months after
the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency sent letters
to banks telling them to improve their deteriorating underwriting standards.
Investors are demanding better terms and pulled cash from leveraged-loan funds
the last two weeks, snapping an unprecedented 95 straight weeks of inflows.
Drug
Prices Defy Gravity, Doubling for Dozens of Products - (www.bloomberg.com) Earl
Harford, a retired professor, recently bought a month’s worth of the pills he
needs to keep his leukemia at bay. The cost: $7,676, or three times more than
when he first began taking the pills in 2001. Over the years, he has paid more
than $140,000 from his retirement savings to cover his share of the drug’s
price. “People with this condition are being taken advantage of by the pharmaceutical industry,” said Harford, 84, of Tucson, Arizona. “They
haven’t improved the drug; they haven’t done anything but keep manufacturing
it. How do they justify it?” As the pharmaceutical industry, led by Pfizer
Inc.’s proposed $100 billion takeover of AstraZeneca Plc,
is in the throes of the greatest period of consolidation in a decade, one
reality remains unchanged: Drug prices keep defying the law of gravity. Since
2007, the cost of brand-name medicines has surged, with prices doubling for
dozens of established drugs that target everything from multiple sclerosis to
cancer, blood pressure and even erections, according to an analysis conducted
for Bloomberg News.
Ukraine’s
East Unravels as IMF Warns on Financing - (www.bloomberg.com) Ukraine’s east is slipping out of the government’s
grasp as separatists take over more official buildings, with the International
Monetary Fund warning extra financing may be needed if control over the
industrial heartland is lost. Armed men stormed the Donetsk regional
prosecutors’ office today, throwing stones and stun grenades. Pro-Russian
rebels in nearby Slovyansk said they’d begun talks to swap international
monitors abducted last week, the Interfax news service said. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel urged Russian President Vladimir Putin today to help free the
observers. “The government doesn’t control the situation in Donetsk as well as
part of the Donetsk region,” acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov
said yesterday in Kiev. “Because there is a real threat ofRussia starting a continental war, our army is
on full combat alert.”
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