Monday April 13 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Greek political unrest and deepening debt crisis fuel talk of snap election - (www.theguardian.com)  Greece has confirmed it will this week repay a €450m (£330m) International Monetary Fund, as the worsening greek debt crisis has reanimated talk within the ruling Syriza party of a snap general election if ongoing discussions with creditors fail. The Greek finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, held informal talks with the IMF’s managing director, Christine Lagarde, in Washington DC on Sunday, and Lagarde said he confirmed that the repayment would be made on Thursday.  Meanwhile, warnings of early elections underscored the political unrest in Athens. Varoufakis told the Naftemporiki newspaper on Monday that Greece must reach an outline funding agreement with its lenders at a meeting of euro zone finance ministers on 24 April.

The Atlanta Fed just wiped out its US growth forecast for the first quarter - (www.businessinsider.com)  The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta just completely wiped out its US growth forecast for the first quarter: It now expects that there was no growth at all in Q1. That's pretty amazing for a country that looks likely to raise interest rates within the next six months. Here's the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow index, a regular forecast update for what the central bank thinks GDP growth will be:

Judge orders Prince Andrew sex allegations struck from court record - (www.theguardian.com)   Allegations that a 17-year-old was forced to have sex with Britain’s Prince Andrew, which prompted a crisis at Buckingham Palace earlier this year, have been removed from a federal court case by a judge in the US. Judge Kenneth Marra ordered Virginia Roberts’s accusations about Andrew, the Duke of York, to be struck from the record and denied her attempt to join a lawsuit against Jeffrey Epstein, a friend of the prince and a convicted sex offender. “At this juncture in the proceedings, these lurid details are unnecessary,” Marra wrote in his order, issued at the US district court in southern Florida on Tuesday morning. “These unnecessary details shall be stricken.” Andrew and Buckingham Palace vehemently deny Roberts’s allegations. Marra made no ruling or statement about the veracity of Roberts’s allegations. He said the “factual details regarding with whom and where” she had sex were “immaterial and impertinent” to her argument that she should be allowed to join the lawsuit.

Pressure in Repo Market Spreads - (www.online.wsj.com) A shortage of high-quality bonds is disrupting the $2.6 trillion U.S. market for short-term loans known as repurchase agreements, or “repos,” creating bottlenecks for a key source of liquidity in the financial system and sending ripples through short-term debt markets. Stresses in the repo market are amplifying price swings in government bonds and related debt markets at a time when many investors are reshuffling their portfolios around new interest-rate expectations, following a period of low volatility, traders and analysts said. Although traders said the impact so far has been manageable, the broad concern is that scarcity in repos will pressure rates and could complicate efforts by the Federal Reserve to lift interest rates when the time comes.

Broken Bond Market Complicates Fed’s Plan to Raise Rates - (online.wsj.com) Whether it is banks’ reluctance to commit to buying and selling bonds, shortages in the securities used as collateral in short-term money markets, or the disproportionate role of heavyweight issuers in the supply of U.S. corporate bonds, dysfunction is everywhere. As the Federal Reserve prepares to raise rates, this is raising questions about how well it can manage the credit creation process, the transmission mechanism through which it pursues its economic goals. It might also mean it is risking financial turmoil. Bond geeks are decrying illiquidity – the idea that there aren’t enough standing bids or offers in the marketplace for investors to move quickly in or out of large positions. Combine that with the uncertainty that the Federal Open Market Committee has deliberately fostered around the timing of its first rate increase in eight years and you have the prospect of investors having to unwind bets at a big loss. Such risks could in turn further discourage banks and investment managers from putting money into the market.

OTHER STORIES:

U.S. Stock Futures Drop on Jobs Data as Ringgit, Oil Rise - (www.bloomberg.com)
Oil up more than $1 after Saudi's Asia price hike - (www.reuters.com)
Oil Slump Pushes S&P Toward First Profit Decline Since 2009 - (www.bloomberg.com)
Emerging Stocks Rise to Four-Month High After U.S. Jobs Data - (www.bloomberg.com)

Greeks Pursue Talks on All Fronts as Tsipras Heads to Russia - (www.bloomberg.com)
Greece moves to quell default fears, pledges to meet 'all obligations' - (www.reuters.com)
Greece and I.M.F. Hold Talks on Crucial Debt Payment - (www.nytimes.com)
Petrobras’s China Cash Stems Bond Tumble But Comes With a Stigma - (www.bloomberg.com)