BB&T cuts jobs as it exits equity research, trading business

BB&T cuts jobs as it exits equity research, trading business: ""We recognize this is a challenging time for the affected associates and their families and we're making every effort to place them into other positions," BB&T spokesman Brian Davis said in an emailed statement. "Severance packages and outplacement services will be offered."
The spokesman said the moves were a response to the "changing market conditions" within the equity trading business, which included reduced volume and compressed margins."



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Companies have a 10 trillion dollar bill that is coming due

Companies have a 10 trillion dollar bill that is coming due: "The amount of investment-grade debt rated BBB has climbed to 44 percent of issuance, according to David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff. That classification is the second-lowest rating for investment-grade debt; that level compares to 10 percent about 40 years ago, Rosenberg said.

"Credit quality is becoming an issue after the last few years of debt issuance used to fund share buybacks, dividend payouts and M&A activity," Rosenberg said in a note earlier this week.

"The question is whether the 50-plus companies that Moody's downgraded to 'junk' status in the first quarter was just the thin edge of the wedge," he added. "The remainder that are a mere notch away have a combined debt load of $294 billion — which would just flood the high-yield marketplace."
Of the total $10.3 trillion coming due, 26 percent is speculative grade, or junk.

One of the problems from the corporate debt perspective is that most of the $1.9 trillion or so of corporate cash floating around is held by only the biggest companies. Overall, U.S. companies are holding the lowest level of cash to debt in a decade.

In an earlier report, S&P projected that corporate debt issuance would balloon to $75 trillion by 2020. The agency warned of a possible "Crexit" should conditions tighten and bond market liquidity evaporate"



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Millennials cause homeownership rate to drop to lowest level since 1965

Millennials cause homeownership rate to drop to lowest level since 1965: "In the second quarter of this year, the rate fell to 62.9 percent, not seasonally adjusted, which is the same as it was in 1965, when the U.S. Census started tracking the metric. During the epic housing boom in the mid-2000s, the rate soared as high as 69.2 percent. That was when politicians touted the so-called "ownership society."

The drop in homeownership is largely due to a delay in homebuying by the millennials, who have the lowest ownership rate of their age group in history. Millennials are not only burdened by student loan debt, but they have also delayed life choices like marriage and parenthood, which are the primary drivers of homeownership."



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Michael Bloomberg eviscerates Donald Trump, calls him 'risky, reckless'

Michael Bloomberg eviscerates Donald Trump, calls him 'risky, reckless': ""Throughout his career, Trump has left behind a well-documented record of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits, angry shareholders and contractors who feel cheated, and disillusioned customers who feel ripped off. Trump says he wants to run the nation like he's run his business. God help us," Bloomberg said."



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Fed's Mester Says Helicopter Money "The Next Step" In US Monetary Policy | Zero Hedge

Fed's Mester Says Helicopter Money "The Next Step" In US Monetary Policy | Zero Hedge: "As Australia's ABC reports, Mester, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and a member of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), signalled direct payments to households and  businesses to stoke spending was an option if interest rate cuts and quantitative easing fail.

"We're always assessing tools that we could use," Mester told the ABC's AM program. "In the US we've done quantitative easing and I think that's proven to be useful.

"So it's my view that [helicopter money] would be sort of the next step if we ever found ourselves in a situation where we wanted to be more accommodative.

Mester's qualified support for the use of "helicopter money" comes amid expectations that the Bank of Japan is poised to unleash a major fiscal stimulus package of at least 10 trillion yen ($130 billion) to kickstart its flat-lining economy."



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Humpday Humor: Earnings Expectations Edition | Zero Hedge

Humpday Humor: Earnings Expectations Edition | Zero Hedge: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me for the sixth year in a row - I must be a bloody idiot!!"

ool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me for the sixth year in a row - I must be a bloody idiot!!

h/t @Stalingrad_Poor

And it is that 'idiocy' that makes the following chart somehow acceptable to investors...

Bonus Humor... US GDP growth expectations seasonal tendency to be revised dramatically lower...

Charts: Bloomberg

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Who's Most Afraid Of Contagion From Italy's Bank Meltdown? | Zero Hedge

Who's Most Afraid Of Contagion From Italy's Bank Meltdown? | Zero Hedge: "So which country’s banks are most exposed to Italian sovereign debt (apart from Italy itself)?

France — and by a long shot!

As Die Welt reports, the total exposure of French banks to Italian debt exceeds €250 billion. That’s triple the amount of exposure of the second most exposed European nation, Germany, whose banks hold €83.2 billion worth of Italian bonds. Deutsche bank alone has over €11.76 billion worth of Italian bonds on its books. The other banking sectors most at risk of contagion are Spain (€44.6 billion), the U.S. (€42.3 billion) the UK (€29.77 billion) and Japan (€27.6 billion).

These elevated levels of exposure help to explain why no matter how much Angela Merkel would love for the Eurozone’s new bail-in rules to be universally applied to the letter — for her own political survival, if nothing else — the risk of contagion, including for the already deeply distressed Deutsche Bank, is simply too great to be ignored. If Italian banks began falling like flies, it would only be a matter of time before investors began selling (or shorting) Italian bonds en masse, by which point the Doom Loop would be in full flow. And once it starts, it’s very hard to stop.

“The whole banking market is under pressure,” former ECB executive board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi told Bloomberg. “We adopted rules on public money; these rules must be assessed in a market that has a potential crisis to decide whether some suspension needs to be applied.”

In other words, European taxpayers, get your wallets out, again. Your banks need you!"



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The "Mystery" Of Who Is Pushing Stocks To All Time Highs Has Been Solved | Zero Hedge

The "Mystery" Of Who Is Pushing Stocks To All Time Highs Has Been Solved | Zero Hedge: "Fast forward six months when Matt King reports that "many clients have been asking for an update of our usual central bank liquidity metrics."

What the update reveals is "a surge in net global central bank asset purchases to their highest since 2013.""



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Unemployment Data Fraud - Private payrolls, low jobless claims underscore U.S. labor market strength | Reuters

Private payrolls, low jobless claims underscore U.S. labor market strength | Reuters: "Claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market, for 70 straight weeks, the longest stretch since 1973. The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 2,500 to 264,750 last week. Claims were low through June, backing views that May's weak payroll gains were not a true reflection of the labor market.

The claims report showed the number of people still receiving benefits after an initial week of aid dropped 44,000 to 2.12 million in the week ended June 25. The four-week average of the so-called continuing claims rose 3,000 to 2.15 million."



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