Deutsche Bank

European shares remain higher, close to intraday highs, with the autos and travel & leisure sectors outperforming and basic resources, utilities underperforming. Meeting of finance officials to reach a deal over Greek aid ended in frustration, forcing leaders to call for an emergency summit for Monday. ECB plans to hold an emergency session of its Governing Council on Friday to discuss a deterioration in liquidity at Greek banks, three people familiar said. German airwave auction raises $5.7b to top 2010 sale. Bank of Japan leaves monetary policy unchanged as forecast. Shanghai Composite Index capped its worst weekly decline in seven years.

Through a series of "fairly complicated" and "quite amazing" legal maneuvers, Jim Simons' Renaissance Technologies has devised a way for employees to invest their retirement savings tax free in Medallion fund which has averaged 72% annually for the past ten years.

Chinese stocks had a tough night with CHINEXT dropping back into official correction once again and the rest of the Chinese stock euphoria fading systemically. In fact, Chinese stocks have gone nowhere in the last month - which is a major problem for a margin-loan-driven ponzi-fest. However, there is a much more worrying canary in China's coalmine which as one analyst warns means "investors are becoming more fearful than greedy." The "No-Brainer" China IPO Trade has tumbled in the last few weeks as limit-up gains disappear, and is nearing a bear market.

As Chinese stock market capitalization topped $10 trillion for the first time in history, so the spectre of total and utter speculative mania looms as the balance of margin loans tops $2.2 trillion and remains among the most obvious early warning systems for an increasingly fragile government-sponsored equity bubble. The problem, as Bloomberg reports, is that any pullback by margin traders would undercut one of the biggest drivers of the rally leaving the "regulator trying to slow down the growth without triggering panic," as Bocom's chief China strategist explains.

As expected, earlier today the pro-ECB top European Union court found that Draghi's impromptu announcement of an OMT, which was basically the wrapping of his "whatever it takes" policy from 2012 to prevent the collapse of the Eurozone when peripheral bond yields were hitting daily records, was perfectly legal.

On the heels of resignations from co-CEOs Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen, Deutsche Bank loses another high profile employee as the bank's global head of commercial real estate departs for Blackstone. Jonathan Pollack's departure comes just one month after the bank's head of structured finance Elad Shraga left to start his own fund and seems to lend credence to the idea that Deutsche Bank may be in trouble.  

With both sides digging in and unwilling to budge, will Europe revert back to its strategy from day 1, namely creating a slow initially, then fast bank run in Greece, one which leads to gradual then sudden capital controls, resulting in civil discontent and disobedience and ultimately, a violent overthrow of the Greek government.

After the carnage of the 2008 crash, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker proposed a rule that would prevent banks from making short-term proprietary trades with financial instruments. In other words, no gambling allowed. This rule would become known as The Volcker Rule, and it went into partial effect on April 1, 2014. Full compliance is required by July 21, 2015. Of course, the bank lobbyists were hard at work, and numerous exceptions and loopholes were created.

Looking back at the Lehman Brothers collapse of 2008, it’s amazing how quickly it all happened. In hindsight there were a few early-warning signs, but the true scale of the disaster publicly unfolded only in the final moments before it became apparent that Lehman was doomed. Could this happen to Deutsche Bank?

Approximately two years ago, a commentary was published entitled “The One Bank”. The empirical foundation for the article (and the paradigm) was an extensive computer model, produced by a trio of academics at a university in Switzerland, and originally reviewed in an article from Forbes.

Is Deustche Bank the next Lehman is likely the wrong question to be asking. Is Lehman the template for European banking may be more to the point. Take it from the guy that called the Lehman debacle 5 months before the fact.

As recently as several months ago, the financial press was surprised when a wave of Deutsche Bank employees, particularly those in the bank's legal department (such as here and here), decided to take their own lives. Now at least one Deutsche Banker, perhaps perturbed by the recent news involving the unexpected departure of his co-CEOs coupled with the even more unexpected raid of the bank's global headquarters, has decided to show the jump from sui- to homicide is a simple one.

From Greek lobbyists to Silicon Valley VCs and from Goldman BSDs to FT reporters, The Bilderberg Group will meet later this week in Tirol to discuss what happens next to the rest of the world... here are the participants...

• Pressing for Greek concessions, Merkel and Hollande keep Tsipras waiting (Reuters)
• Treasuries Extend Slump as Pimco Dumps Two-Thirds of Holdings (BBG)
• U.S. prepares plans for more troops, new base in Iraq: officials (Reuters)
• Texas policeman resigns after video shows him toppling teen (Reuters)
• Kuroda Says Hard to See Yen Dropping More, Spurring Surge (BBG)
• Tech Startups Woo Investors With Unconventional Financial Terms — but Do Numbers Add Up? (WSJ)
• Putin is a 'bully', U.S. needs to respond resolutely: Jeb Bush (Reuters)