Monday March 16 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Greek unemployment edges up to 26 percent in December - (www.reuters.com) Greece's jobless rate rose to 26 percent in December from an upwardly revised 25.9 percent rate in the previous month as the economy shrank slightly in the last quarter of 2014, statistics agency ELSTAT said on Thursday. December's reading, based on seasonally adjusted data, is the lowest since September 2014 when unemployment stood at 26.1 percent. The record high was set in September 2013, when unemployment hit 27.9 percent. Joblessness has come down from record highs as the economy stabilized last year after a severe slump but it remains more than double the euro zone's average of 11.3 percent in December. Greece's economy expanded by 0.7 percent last year, with recovery expected to gain traction this year.

Mark Cuban: We're in a Tech Bubble—and It's Worse Than 2000 - (www.bloomberg.com) Many of today's tech investors have zero liquidity, says Mark Cuban. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban knows a thing or two about tech booms. He made his fortune in the dot-com explosion of the late 1990s, founding and then selling Broadcast.com for more than $5 billion. By doing so, he also avoided the great tech bust that followed the boom. As a result, he's remained a billionaire, and gone to become a championship sports team owner, a TV star, and a powerful investor. Today, Cuban thinks the bubble has returned in a far more dangerous way. In a post on his blog Wednesday evening, Cuban warned against the current mania of investment in apps and other smaller tech firms, writing "If we thought it was stupid to invest in public internet websites that had no chance of succeeding back then, it’s worse today." The crux of his argument: While the tech bubble of 2000 was essentially a public stock bubble, today's bubble is in the private investment realm, leaving those who are in too deep no way to escape. Thousands of angel investors have sunk large sums into private companies, but have no mechanism to liquidate their investments if there's trouble. They can't sell their position, even if they realize it was a mistake.

U.S. Syria strategy falters with collapse of rebel group - (www.reuters.com)  The Hazzm movement was once central to a covert CIA operation to arm Syrian rebels, but the group's collapse last week underlines the failure of efforts to unify Arab and Western support for mainstream insurgents fighting the Syrian military. A blow to U.S. moves to aid rebels, the dissolution of Hazzm also highlights the risks that a new Department of Defense program could face in training and equipping fighters in Jordan, Turkey and Qatar. U.S. officials plan to train thousands of Syrian rebels over three years. The program is expected to begin this month in Jordan and focuses on battling the hardline Islamic State group rather than President Bashar al-Assad. Hazzm's collapse has shown how such efforts will prove difficult in a country where insurgents often battle each other and arms have fallen into the hands of hardline groups.

Bond Traders Stymied by Gridlock Turn to Swaps: Credit Markets - (www.bloomberg.com) There’s a little silver lining for banks in the lack of liquidity in credit markets: the opportunity to peddle derivatives that mimic debt securities as a fix. Trading in total-return swaps linked to bond indexes has surged to $4 billion a week, up from $2.4 billion a year ago, according to data compiled by BNP Paribas SA. JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasts trading of the derivatives, which are meant to make it easier to place bullish and bearish bets in credit markets, will increase by as much as threefold this year. The swaps are gaining traction in part because investors are finding it harder to buy and sell the bonds themselves. Liquidity is declining as regulations introduced to reduce risk-taking deter banks from holding the inventories of securities they need to make markets.

Who Said It? "If You Take Out Saddam, I Guarantee It Will Have Enormous Positive Reverberations" - (www.zerohedge.com) In 2002, Benjamin Netanyahu already harbored some extremely strong convictions on how to deal with both Iran and Iraq. Back then, his opinions on how to handle the particular challenges each presented were quite divergent. On the one hand, he suggested beaming “reruns of Melrose Place” into Tehran, as a way of inspiring a popular uprising. In contrast, he suggested such an approach could never work in Iraq, and instead advocated for his preferred solution: violence. Naturally, he believed that a violent overthrow of Saddam Hussein would be a great thing. Specifically predicting that: If you take out Saddam’s Regime, I guarantee you, that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.

OTHER STORIES:

ECB Ready to Buy Bonds, Signals Inflation Goal in Reach - (www.bloomberg.com)
Emerging Stocks Fall on China Growth as Lira Weakens to Record - (www.bloomberg.com)
Turkish Lira Falls to Record as Minister Says No Reason to Worry - (www.bloomberg.com)
Greece cannot rely on ECB to dodge funding crunch - (www.reuters.com)

ECB Keeps Rates Unchanged as Investors Await QE Details - (www.bloomberg.com)
Draghi’s New Era Blighted by Old Woes as ECB Finalizes QE - (www.bloomberg.com)
Greece Struggles to Make Debt Math Work in Bailout Standoff - (www.bloomberg.com)