From Business Insider:
China stocks surge to 7-year highs despite exports and imports falling sharply
China's exports and imports both fell sharply last month, sparking concern about the health of the world's second-largest economy, although the slip failed to prevent the stock markets from posting another day of frenzied rises.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index of mainland companies listed in Hong Kong increased 4.3 per cent, extending a rise for the eighth day. (Continue)
Get ready for a major boom in technology mergers
Mergers and acquisitions activity around the world continues on a tear. Last year alone saw $3.5 trillion of deal-making, just below the all-time high of 2007, Thomson Reuters data show.
Technology companies accounted for $214 billion of that, near the records of 1999 and 2000, according to Qatalyst Partners. (More)
STAN DRUCKENMILLER: The only way to win the hedge fund game is by being a 'pig' 
Forget portfolio diversification.
Legendary hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller said when you see something in the market that really, really excites you, "bet the ranch on it." (Read more)
From Bloomberg:
El Nino Seen Nearing as Australia Issues Alert on Warm Ocean
An El Nino may develop by June, according to Australia’s state forecaster, which upgraded its outlook for the weather-altering pattern to Alert.
Ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean continue to be warmer-than-average, trade winds remain weaker-than-average and all models suggest further ocean warming will occur, the Bureau of Meteorology said Tuesday. The bureau raised its outlook from Watch, with the new level indicating at least a 70 percent chance of an El Nino this year, it said. (Full article)
Nokia in Advanced Talks to Acquire Alcatel-Lucent Assets 
Nokia Oyj is in advanced talks to acquire Alcatel-Lucent SA in the Finnish telecommunications-equipment maker’s biggest-ever acquisition that could value the French rival at more than $13 billion.
The combination would be in a public exchange offer by Espoo, Finland-based Nokia for Paris-based Alcatel, the companies said in statements Tuesday. Alcatel shares jumped as much as 18 percent in the French capital. Nokia fell as much as 8.3 percent on the Helsinki exchange. (More)
Emerging Stocks Halt 11-Day Rally as H-Shares Gauge Retreats
Emerging-market stocks fell for the first time in 12 days as technology companies tumbled and Chinese shares in Hong Kong retreated from the highest level since 2008. (Read more)
Ackman Says Student Loans Are the Biggest Risk in the Credit Market 
The balance of student loans outstanding in the U.S. — also including private loans without government guarantees — swelled to $1.3 trillion as of the second quarter 2014, based on data released by the Federal Reserve in October. The rising level has prompted investors and government officials to draw parallels to the subprime mortgage market before housing collapsed starting in 2006. (More here)
Western Australia Rating May Be Cut on Iron Ore Slump, S&P Says
Western Australia’s credit rating may be cut by Standard & Poor’s as falling iron-ore prices hit the state’s mining royalties and weaken its budget position.
The state’s AA+ rating was placed on credit watch with negative implications, S&P said in a statement on Tuesday, forecasting budget deficits for the foreseeable future without action by Premier Colin Barnett’s government. (Continue reading)
Europe's Richest Fight Off Dropping Euro as Markets Surge 
The two biggest publicly traded fortunes in Europe have risen more than 10 percent in 2015 despite the falling value of the euro in the same period, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Inditex SA founder Amancio Ortega is Europe's richest person with a $68.6 billion fortune. The Spanish billionaire's net worth has risen $7.5 billion since Jan. 1 and is less than $2 billion from overtaking Mexico's Carlos Slim, who's lost $2.4 billion. L'Oreal SA heiress Liliane Bettencourt's fortune is up $3.7 billion. Bill Gates, the richest person in the U.S. and the world, has lost $1.7 billion in 2015. (Read here)
Greek Officials Return to Work as Economic Reform Deadline Looms
Greek government officials are returning to work on Tuesday after the Orthodox Easter break to face the daily grind of negotiations to unlock financing and keep the country afloat.
The most indebted state in the euro should be targeting having a list of reform proposals by about April 20, EU Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said in Bloomberg Television interview yesterday. European Union finance ministers are planning to meet to discuss the matter on April 24 in Riga, Latvia. (More)
Swedish Inflation Misses Estimates After Record Stimulus
Sweden’s consumer prices rose less than analysts estimated, providing little relief for the central bank as it unleashes unprecedented steps to jolt the Nordic economy out of a deflationary spiral. (Continue)
Nigeria Signs Rosatom Deal for Up to $80 Billion Nuclear Power
Nigeria is in talks with Russia’s Rosatom Corp. to build as many as four nuclear power plants costing about $80 billion as Africa’s biggest economy seeks to add 1,200 megawatts capacity by the end of the decade. (Full article)
Shale Oil Boom Could End in May After Price Collapse
The shale oil boom that pushed U.S. crude production to the highest level in four decades is grinding to a halt.
Output from the prolific tight-rock formations such as North Dakota’s Bakken shale will decline 57,000 barrels a day in May, the Energy Information Administration said Monday. It’s the first time the agency has forecast a drop in output since it began issuing a monthly drilling productivity report in 2013. (More)
China is building new harbors and airstrips on various reefs and atolls in the Spratly Islands — facilities that, Beijing confirms, will be used for military as well as civil purposes. The U.S. and its allies in the region need to weigh their response with care. (Read more)
Tanker’s Odyssey Shows LNG Market Going Local as Prices Converge 
The tanker British Sapphire just finished its own version of Homer’s Odyssey.
BP Plc’s vessel, capable of holding 155,000 cubic meters of liquefied natural gas, set sail from Trinidad in mid-February in search of the highest price on world markets. It headed for Asia, changed course toward Europe when it was halfway to the Cape of Good Hope, and then sailed back toward the Caribbean. It docked in the Dominican Republic after completing a 9,000-mile, month-long trip that left it 800 miles from its starting point, and unloaded, signals from the ship compiled by Bloomberg from IHS Maritime data showed. (Read here)
Prudential Chief Echoes Dimon Saying Liquidity Is Top Worry
Prudential Investment Management Chief Executive Officer David Hunt says the No. 1 concern among bond buyers globally is liquidity and its rapid disappearance. (More)
China Walks $264 Billion Tightrope as Margin Debt Powers Stocks 
Confident that China’s stock market rally still has legs, Jiang Lin recently began borrowing money from her brokerage to buy more shares.
Her newly-opened margin finance account with state-owned China Investment Securities Co. has allowed Jiang, a 29-year-old marketing executive in Beijing, to double up her bets on the vertigo-inducing rally in Chinese share prices. (Full article)
U.S. Drug Spending Increases Most in 13 Years to $373.9 Billion 
Spending on prescription drugs saw the largest increase since 2001, with the nation’s pharmacy bill rising to $373.9 billion last year as new treatments came to market and manufacturers increased prices on old ones. (Read more)
Money Market Abandons Logic in Denmark After Currency Sinks
The Danish krone is close to its weakest in 14 years and money-market traders are predicting the central bank will need to raise rates in 2015 to defend its euro peg. (Here)
The Airlines' Scores Are In, and They Aren't Pretty 
Letting U.S. airlines merge into behemoths was billed as a win-win: The carriers would become financially stable for the first time, and consumers would benefit from vast improvements in air travel.
Well, the first part of that arrangement has worked out beautifully, with airlines posting robust profits amid a plunge in the price of oil. But travelers aren't reaping the promised advantages, according to an annual ranking of airline performance. (Continue)
Allen and Branson Best Musk as the Billionaire Space Race Takes Off
Elon Musk is aiming for his Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to bring patrons to Mars. Richard Branson and Paul Allen have focused their space businesses on a more mundane goal: reducing the cost of shipping cargo into earth's orbit. Their ideas will be showcased in Colorado this week at the Space Symposium trade show. Musk's fortune has risen 8 percent in the past 12 months, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Branson and Allen have each increased more than 10 percent. (More here)
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ECB Says Euro-Area Banks Tapping QE Program to Fund New Loans 
The European Central Bank said its asset-buying program is spurring lending in the euro area as liquidity rises and market interest rates fall.
The central bank started buying private assets last year and expanded the program in March to include sovereign bonds and agency debt to revive inflation. In its bank-lending survey for the first quarter of 2015 published on Tuesday, the Frankfurt-based institution said the strategy is having an impact. (More)
It's only April, but 2015 already seems to be the year of the Asian stock bubble. In addition to mainland China's bubbly markets, the region is dealing with two other equity booms that don't jibe with economic fundamentals. (Read more)
Your Night Job Proves the Labor Market's Still Not Back to Normal
If you're working multiple jobs just to make ends meet, Federal Reserve officials are looking for you.
Central bankers considering when to execute the first interest-rate increase in almost a decade are weighing the extent of hidden slack in the labor market—the kind of underutilization of labor resources that isn't captured by such indicators as unemployment and labor-force participation rates. One possible source: the million-plus Americans cobbling together two or three jobs for hours that add up to a normal workweek. (Continue reading)
Singapore Dollar Jumps Most in Two Weeks as MAS Holds Off Easing 
Singapore’s dollar strengthened the most in two weeks after the central bank refrained from easing monetary policy again following its surprise move in January.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses the currency rather than interest rates to guide the economy, said in a statement Tuesday it would keep unchanged the slope, width and band it uses to guide the local dollar. The economy expanded an annualized 1.1 percent in the three months through March from the previous quarter, the trade ministry said separately. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey was 0.2 percent. (More)
The Only Way Is Up for Analysts Revising Hong Kong Targets 
As Hong Kong’s stock analysts rush to play catch-up to the city’s world-beating rally, their only question is how far the gains will go.
Three brokerages boosted Hang Seng Index forecasts Monday, with Bocom International Holdings Co. expecting the measure to rally 14 percent to a record 32,000 by June. Credit Suisse Group AG’s year-end projection of 28,000 was mown down in just a day, with the index up 2.7 percent yesterday to close above that level for the first time since 2007. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its price target on the city’s exchange operator by 61 percent, less than a week after its last increase. (Continue)
China Junk Bonds Pose Most Risk Since ’04 on Credit-Quality Dips
Investors in Chinese junk bonds are taking the biggest gamble in at least a decade.
Leverage for speculative-grade Chinese companies is at its highest since at least 2004, whether measured by earnings relative to interest expense or total debt to a measure of cash-flow, according to data compiled by Bloomberg using a Bank of America Merrill Lynch index. Borrowers have also piled on the most debt relative to their assets since 2007. (Here)
Yen’s Drop Is Approaching Its Limit, Says Abe Adviser Hamada
An adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated the yen has weakened enough and that the Bank of Japan needn’t force inflation to its 2 percent target. (Full article)
Hong Kong Link Is No Match for 44% One-Day Score in Chinese IPOs
Even the world-beating rally in Hong Kong’s stock market can’t compete with Chinese investors’ favorite way to make a quick profit: initial public offerings. (More)
