JP Morgan Chief China Economist: Chinese Growth Stabilizing; Look for Second Half Weakness

It was subtle, but he inferred the Chinese economy would slow down again– when asked if the Chinese economy would bottom at 6.7%. The chief China economist for JP Morgan, Haibin Zhu, is sanguine on these GDP numbers, which missed estimates of 6.8%. Once Chinese easing policies begin to wane, most likely in Q3 of 2016, GDP will begin to slow again. Moreover, he believes China will need to establish an American styled chapter 11 system to deal with the looming debt crisis.

He was impressed by the manufacturing numbers. Bottom line: take a shot each time he says “stabilization” and you will be drunk by the end of this video.

I’ve never seen such a disgraceful and humiliating IPO as the one purported upon the good people of America back in 2012.

In what can only be described as the single worst IPO in the history of the stock market, BATS Global tried to trade its stupid stock on their own stupid exchange, back in 2012, only to bear witness to the horror of it collapsing to virtually nothing at all within seconds.

Not only that, their exchange withered into dust on that fateful morning, taking stocks like AAPL with it. It was an unmitigated disaster. They were forced to cancel the trades, the IPO, and pray to their satanic idols that people would forget about this fuckery.

Guess what? Four years later, with a valuation more than double of what it was in 2012, the fuckers from BATS are going to whore their shares again for the explicit benefit of selling shareholders.

Yes, demand it strong. Yes, the IPO is being priced at the high end of the proposed range. And, yes, they upped the offering to appease rabidly hungry investors.

Zero dollars will go to the company. Why bother going public then? What sort of chicanery is at play here?

Bats Global Markets Inc. priced its initial public offering at the top end of its marketed range, valuing the company at $1.8 billion.

The deal raised $253 million after 13.3 million shares were sold for $19 each, compared with its estimated price range of $17 to $19, according to a statement Thursday. The share sale, which doesn’t include the underwriters’ option to purchase an additional 1.995 million shares, is the biggest U.S. listing so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Proceeds from the sale won’t go to the company, but will instead go to investors including Bank of America Corp., KCG Holdings Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Bats increased the deal’s size after demand for shares exceeded the 11.2 million originally offered by 20 times, a person familiar with the matter said.

Ah, good old Vampire Squid and the Confederates at BAC need to get liquid. I understand. Do you?

This IPO is shit.

Engulfed with losses Ensco just filed a 50 million share offering, in an effort to stay alive and to take advantage of the lemmings who’ve bid the stock up in recent weeks.

During the Feb lows, ESV touched down in the 8’s. Smart money says that after diluting investors to this degree, raising $500 million on a market cap of $2.4 billion, it’s heading back there in short order.

Double pleasure. ESV earnings.

Operating revenues expected to be $812-817 million ($788 mln Capital IQ Consensus), benefiting from estimated reported utilization between 64% and 66%, as compared to the low-60% range in our first quarter 2016 outlook disclosed on our February 25, 2016 conference call, and average day rates that declined by approximately 3% to 4%, as compared to a 7% to 8% decline in our prior disclosed outlook.
Contract drilling expense is anticipated to be between $361 million and $366 million, as compared to our prior disclosed outlook of $385 million to $390 million.

Expected capital expenditures for the year ended December 31, 2016 has been revised to $400 million.
As of March 31, 2016, our total debt, cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments are expected to be $5.9 billion, $1.1 billion and $295 million, respectively.

I’ve gotten insight from industry professionals who’ve told me that today’s drop in the NASDAQ was ‘a bit too much to bear’. Moreover, and this goes without saying, there will be an avalanche of redemption requests following yet another arduous day in the markets.

Tragic tragedies abound.

At the forefront of today’s decline was retail, down an earth shattering 0.6%. The blood letting in big oil is just around the bend too, with that index up a paltry 0.15%.

Inside Exodus, the algorithms haven’t flagged oversold just yet. However, should we get another ‘blood in the streets’ day tomorrow, I will not question whether or not we will see one. I am certain of it.

God speed.

As a teenager I interned at the NYC comptrollers office. During my career managing money, I’ve done business with pension funds and a relative of mine was the administrator for his union, whose job it was to oversee investments, many of which were tossed into fucked up hedge funds. I recall looking at his union’s investment performance, circa 2002, and it was dreadful-20-30% declines across the board.

When I was at the comptrollers office, they were very conservative, only investing the people’s money in bond fund and super conservative  mutual funds.

Alas, 2008 hit them like a bag of bricks and they got scared. They ran to the hedge fund industry, who, incidentally, doesn’t hedge anymore, and invested billions–only to find out later that they were all drug addled morons.

NYC joins California in revoking their commitment to the lackluster hedge fund industry. This is the beginning of this trend, not the end.

The move by the fund, which had $51.2 billion in assets as of Jan. 31, follows a similar actions by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the nation’s largest public pension fund, and public pensions in Illinois.
“Hedges have underperformed, costing us millions,” New York City’s Public Advocate Letitia James told board members in prepared remarks. “Let them sell their summer homes and jets, and return those fees to their investors.”
Luxor Capital Group, a long-time favorite with many pensions, lost an average 18.3 percent a year for the last two years.
New York city’s public pension system has five separate pension funds with individual governing structures. The system has total assets of $154 billion, with about $3 billion invested in hedge funds as of Jan. 31.
NYCERS had $1.7 billion invested in hedge funds at the end of the second quarter 2015, according to its financial report. That amounted to 2.8 percent of total assets and was the smallest portion of its ‘alternative investments’ portfolio, which included $8.1 billion in private equity.
Unaudited data from the city Comptroller’s office showed NYCERS’ hedge fund exposure was $1.4 billion as of Jan. 31.
Comptroller Scott Stringer, a trustee, said eliminating hedge funds would a help NYCERS construct a “responsible portfolio that meets our long-term investment objectives”.
NYCERS paid nearly $40 million in fees to hedge funds during its 2015 financial year, while its hedge fund portfolio returned 3.89 percent over the year, according to its financial report.
“Hedge funds are charging exorbitant fees for high-risk and opaque investments,” said James.
Public pensions started to invest heavily in hedge funds after the financial crisis in 2008-2009 to diversify their assets. A CEM Benchmarking survey of public pensions with a total of $2.4 trillion in assets found 5.2 percent of assets were invested in hedge funds in 2014, compared to 1 percent a decade earlier.

Poor hedge funders. How will they afford their $150 mill beach homes without tax payers dollars to slush around?

Regulators want to ban Elizabeth Holmes for 2 years for the sins she’s committed in the blood testing field. Her license to operate in California is under scrutiny and may be revoked. A giant storm has hit her shores and Bill George from Harvard is here to take away her safety vest.

Here are some of the reported bagholders for Theranos, whose valuation swelled to $10 billion in early 2015.

Other rumored investors include: BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Continental Properties Co., Esoom Enterprise (Taiwan), Jupiter Partners, Palmieri Trust, Partner Fund Management, Dixon Doll, Ray Bingham and B.J. Cassin.

Seeing that Larry is 61, this great fear of Trump, expressed by the former Harvard President, Treasury Secretary, and World Bank economist, covers a lot of ground. By definition of his fear and the timeline by which his illustrious life spans, Trump is a greater threat to our security than the cold war, Vietnam war, 9/11 and the recent plague of ISIS, all according to Mr. Summers of course.

“I think the prospect of Donald Trump being President would be the gravest threat to our prosperity, our security, and our freedom in my adult lifetime,” Summers said. “That’s the thing I would worry most about.”

Summers believes the rise of radicals, like Trump and Sanders, is due to a lackluster economy.

“I think people are frustrated because the economy’s grown slowly…because their wages have increased slowly…because they have a sense that there’s a small group in the society who’s done remarkably well, while most others haven’t really made great progress,” Summers said.

The Trump wall is ILLEGAL and racist.

“People see a rising China,” Summers said. “They see rising emerging markets. They see tremendous new capacities coming from technology, and they worry about what the role is for them.”

Someone give Larry a scooby snack.

So what? Paul Tudor Jones is busy doing other things and simply doesn’t have the time to manage money aggressively anymore. The fault lies with his moron portfolio managers, who seem to be dropping like flies as of late.

Co-President (WTF is that?), Michael Riccardi, is leaving after three years. Portfolio managers, Spencer Lampert and John De Palma, joined Mark Heffernan in either firing themselves, quitting or retiring from the firm over the past year.

Clearly, there is a shake up underway at Tudor, most likely due to the lackluster results.

His main fund was down 2.8% in the first quarter. It even lost money in March, if you could believe that.  Over the past two years, his flagship fund of $13 billion made 1.4 percent in 2015 and 3.5 percent in 2014. As such, it’s being reported by Bloomberg that $1 billion or so has been drawn from Tudor, in the form of face slapping redemptions.

This is outrageous! Clearly, the Chinese government is purporting a conspiracy against the good people inside of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. Why, all vaccines are safe and without reproach. Anyone who says otherwise is a nut!

China plans to punish 357 officials implicated in a scandal over vaccine distribution that reignited drug safety fears and highlighted the vulnerabilities in the country’s vast medical distribution chain.

The officials may face demotions or could lose their jobs, the state-run Xinhua news agency said late Wednesday. About 200 people have been detained over the scandal, Xinhua said.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang last month called for an investigation into vaccine supplies after allegations that a mother-daughter team had been distributing shots that may have been compromised due to improper storage and transport. The scandal fueled outrage from parents on social media and on online public forums.

Twenty five vaccines were included in the scandal, including vaccines for encephalitis, hepatitis B, meningococcal disease, mumps, polio and rabies. As a result, scores of deaths have been reported; but the Chinese government have been very hush on releasing actual figures.