Thursday, May 25, 2017

Friday May 26 2017 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:            

Noble Group Halted After 32% Plunge as S&P Sees Default Risk - (www.bloomberg.com) Noble Group Ltd.’s crisis deepened after S&P Global Ratings flagged a risk of default for the commodity trader within a year, triggering a rout in the company’s shares before they were suspended in Singapore ahead of a company statement. The 2020 bonds fell to a record low.  “Noble is fighting for its life now,” said Owen Gallimore, head of credit strategy at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., who’s been covering Noble Group since 2008 and has been underweight on the bonds since 2015. “We’re not sure how long it can sustain without a white knight.”

Catalonia Threatens Spain with “Financial Bloodbath”  - (www.wolfstreet.com) On Monday El Pais published leaked excerpts from what it claims to be the Catalonian regional government’s road map to independence. The secret document includes a plan for the region to unilaterally break away from Spain should its citizens be prevented from holding a referendum on independence in the fall. It provoked a fierce backlash from Madrid. “This proposal is an unacceptable attempt to blackmail the state,” Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said in a hastily convened press conference. Spain’s defense minister María Dolores de Cospedal likened the plot to a coup d’état. In the meantime, Madrid continues to refuse to even entertain the idea of allowing a referendum on Catalan independence, despite the fact that in just about every survey of the last few years 80% of Catalans, including many unionists, have requested one.

Bitcoin Explodes Above $2400 After China Downgrade, Scaling Agreement Reached - (www.zerohedge.com) Following comments from DoubleLine's Jeff Gundlach tieing the surge in virtual currencies to the demise of China (right before that nation is downgraded), Bitcoin surged overnight, breaking above $2400 for the first time. It is now up over 150% year-to-date. Bitcoin is up fopr the 26th day in the last 29 sessions, doubling in price in that period... Wednesday's gain comes after a bitcoin scaling agreement was reached by the Digital Currency Group, representing 56 companies in 21 countries, at the Consensus 2017 conference in New York, which reduced some of the fears surrounding the so-called 'hard fork' in Bitcoin's code. The agreement states: "We agree to immediately support the following parallel upgrades to the bitcoin protocol, which will be deployed simultaneously and based on the original Segwit2Mb proposal:

Interest-only loans could be 'Australia's sub-prime' - (www.afr.com) High-risk mortgage loans to young families, professionals and other over-extended borrowers amounting to more than six times household incomes could wipe out 20 per cent of the major banks' equity base, institutional investment fund JCP Investment Partners has warned. In a proprietary study of the nation's record high-and-growing household debt mountain, the Melbourne-based fund said Irish-style housing losses for the bigger-than-recognised pool of riskier borrowers could wipe out half of the banks' equity capital. Interest-only loans, said JCP -- which is one of three Australian equities managers appointed by the Future Fund -- could be "Australia's sub-prime".

Brazil Selloff Resumes as Temer's Graft Defense Falls Flat - (www.bloomberg.com) Brazilian assets resumed a selloff Monday as investors fled what had been one of the most popular trades in emerging markets. The real and local stocks were among the world’s worst performers as President Michel Temer’s support deteriorated further over the weekend, days after an audio recording emerged in which he appeared to endorse illegal bribes to a disgraced lawmaker. The losses have been magnified because so many global investors had piled into Brazilian assets on bets that Temer would push through measures to shore up the country’s finances.




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