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Italian mayors slam spending cuts - (finance.yahoo.com) Mayors from across Italy,
holding up flags and wearing their tricolor sashes, demonstrated in front of
the Italian Senate on Tuesday against spending cuts planned by the government. "We
have reached our limits," said Mayor Andrea Marchi of the northern town of
Ostellato, echoing big city Mayor Gianni Alemanno of Rome about threats to
public services. The mayors planned to meet with Senate President Renato
Schifani and the Cabinet minister for relations with parliament Piero Giarda. Graziano
Delrio, president of the association of Italian cities, says the cuts will be
"lethal" for many cities and that it's not too late for the
legislature to modify the government decree. The government of Premier Mario
Monti has said it is hoping to save a total of €26 billion ($31.7 billion) over
the next three years with spending cuts in various sectors of government.
Trading Surges Boosted Whale Positions Before Audits - (www.bloomberg.com) Trading surges that
temporarily boosted the value of credit derivatives held by JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) may
provide clues about whether traders at the bank masked losses that have
spiraled to $5.8 billion. Spikes in late January and again at the end of
February, which more than doubled the volume of trades in an index tied to the
creditworthiness of companies, lowered the cost of the index, raising the value
of the bank’s holdings. The surges came just before end-of-the-month bank
audits to verify prices. The trading patterns offer a road map for
investigators after the biggest U.S. bank by assets restated first-quarter
earnings to account for a larger loss on the derivatives than previously
disclosed. JPMorgan, which shut the London-based group responsible for the
trades in its chief investment office, said an internal probe found evidence,
without providing specifics, that employees may have tried to hide losses.
Brazil’s Scrapped IPOs Follow Worst Stock Rout In BRICs - (www.bloomberg.com) Brazilian companies are
canceling initial public offerings at the second-highest rate among the biggest emerging
markets as slowing economic growth makes the country’s
benchmark stock index (SHCOMP) the
worst performer this year. Three IPOs in Brazil were scrapped this year, while
seven were announced, compared with zero withdrawals in China and
less than a third of offerings this year in India,
data compiled by Bloomberg show. One initial share sale was announced in Russia as
well as one cancelation. Brazilian companies raised a combined 3.88 billion
reais ($1.9 billion) in 2012 through IPOs, down 40 percent from the same period
a year ago.
Spain Edges Toward Rescue as Regions Aided: Euro Credit - (www.bloomberg.com)
Spain’s
bailout of its regions risks pushing the nation closer to a full international
rescue after investors charged the nation more to borrow for five years than
for a decade, threatening its access to debt markets. Spain’s five-year
borrowing costs briefly rose above 10- year yields today, and traded 5 basis
points below the 7.57 percent rate on benchmark 10-year debt at 11.30 a.m. in Madrid.
Bonds issued by Catalonia continued to fall after the region said it may tap
the government’s rescue fund. “It’s almost a waiting game now until they seek a
sovereign bailout,” Lyn Graham-Taylor, a fixed income strategist at Rabobank in London,
said in a telephone interview. The regional bailout plan was “the straw that
broke the camel’s back,” he said.
Eurozone danger mounts as Spain spins out of control - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Spain is battling to avert a
fully-fledged sovereign rescue after borrowing costs spiralled out of control,
with dangerous knock-on effects in Italy and Eastern Europe. The yields on
closely-watched two-year debt surged by 78 basis points to a modern-era high of
6.42pc, leaving it unclear how long the country can continue funding itself.
Italy’s two-year yields vaulted to 4.6pc.
“We
can’t keep going like this for another 15 days,” said Prof Miguel Angel Bernal
from Madrid’s Institute of Market Studies. “The European Central Bank has to
bring out its heavy artillery.”
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