New York Stock Exchange

• Yellen Spending Recipe Lacking Key Ingredient: Bigger Wage Gains (BBG)
• Ukraine signs trade agreement with EU, draws Russian threat (Reuters)
• GM Documents Show Senior Executive Had Role in Switch (WSJ)
• Australian Report Postulates Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Lost Oxygen (WSJ)
• World’s Biggest Debt Load Lures Distressed Funds to China  (BBG)
• GPIF Rushing Into Riskier Assets Before Ready, Okina Says (BBG)
• Japan Prices Rise Most Since ’82 on Tax, Utility Fees (BBG)
• Italian Debt Swells to Rival Germany as Bond Yields Slide (BBG)
• China’s Manhattan Project Marred by Ghost Buildings (BBG)
• BOE's Carney Says Rates Won't Rise to Levels Previously Considered Normal (WSJ)

In what appears to be the first real action post-Flash Boys, NY AG Eric Schneiderman will announce at 4pm ET that Barclays will be sued over fraud allegations related to its Dark Pool's preferential treatment of high-frequency traders. As Bloomberg notes, Barclays runs one of the market's largest dark pools. This comes 2 months after the NY AG sent requests for information to various major HFT shops. It seems, just as we noted here, that a potential scapegoat is being primed 'just in case' this 'market' can't withstand the Fed's pullback.

For the last two decades Coach (COH) could do no wrong. Its aspirational handbags flew off the shelves at hefty prices, causing its sales to soar from $1.3 billion to $5.1 billion during the 10-years ending in fiscal 2013. Better still, its EPS soared by 6X, representing a 20% earnings growth rate over the same period. Greatest of all, its share price peaked at nearly $80 in 2012 after having opened the 21st century at $3 per share. Needless to say, the believers and speculators who got on board for the 27X gain in twelve years were fabulously rewarded, as was its founder and largest stockholder, Lew Frankfort, who became a billionaire along the way. So the capitalist dream is still working in America, right? Not exactly.

From Ancient Egypt to Modern America …

If clichés reflect overly common (if therefore unappreciated) wisdom, then we finally have a good explanation for why risk assets continue to rally.  No, there are actually not “More buyers than sellers” – money flows are negative over the last month for both U.S. equity mutual funds and ETFs.  And forget about investors “Downgrading on valuation” as stocks climb higher and higher; truth be told, that’s not even really a thing (unless you work on the sell side).  Nope, this is a “Flight to quality”, “don’t fight the Fed”, “never short a dull market” environment with “easy comps” from a long rough winter.  Want to call a top somewhere around here?  Remember that “Markets discount events 6 months in the future.”  A “Santa Claus rally” in June?  That would fit the one cliché we know is actually the market’s True North: it will do exactly what hurts the most “Smart” investors.  And that would be to rally further as the doomsayers double down and the timid cling to their bonds and cash. 

It seems that no market tops until the bag has been fully passed to retail muppets, and we appear to be in the process of that happening right now. The retail investor is getting back into the stock market and is seemingly focused on the riskiest types of shares; unlisted penny stocks. They aren’t just dipping their toes in either, the pace exceeds that of the tech boom of the late 1990?s and has just hit the highest amount on record.

The New York Fed's historical appreciation society has looked back at what was likely the US' first crash and foud that Alexander Hamilton's actions in 1792 which they claim "appears to have effectively managed the crisis with little or no long-term spillover to the economy," has now become the blueprint for manipulative intervention until this day by the central planners who know far better than 'us' collectively... but there are some lessons that Bagehot has that are worth remembering...

It happened in 2000 and 2007. Spectacular consequences! Now it happened again. And beneath the blue-chip highs, parts of the market are already crashing.

• Ukraine attacks rebel city, helicopter shot down (Reuters)
• Euro Unemployment Holds Near Record Amid Factory Gains (BBG)
• Yellen’s Fed Resigned to Diminished Growth Expectations (BBG)
• Junket Figure's Disappearance Shakes Macau's Gambling Industry (WSJ)
• China tried to undermine economic report showing its ascendancy (WSJ)
• Liquidity Trap Hitting AAA Bonds Has ATP CEO Sounding Alarm (BBG)
• AstraZeneca Snubs Pfizer Approach That U.K. Won’t Block (BBG)
• Missing Jet Recordings May Have Been 'Edited' (NBC)
• RBS turns corner as first-quarter profit trebles (Reuters)
• Japan household spending hits four-decade high, wages key to outlook (RTRS) while Real Incomes Drop 3.3% in March, 6th straight decline

It is somewhat ironic, actually make that criminal, that two days after new SEC head Mary Jo White (whose conflict of interest list is so vast courtesy of her prior position as defending every Wall Street from their criminal acts she now has to recuse herself from virtually every enforcement action) solemnly promised Congress under oath that the "markets are not rigged", the SEC comes out swinging and slaps the wrist of the NYSE with an intolerable $4.5 million fine for allowing market rigging "for a period of time from 2008 to 2012."

While the news that Pfizer has been sniffing around AstraZeneca has been around for a while, it is the confirmation this morning from Pfizer that it is considering a cash and stock offer for AZN that has been the catalyst to push futures off their early trading levels, on yet another instance of the Pharma M&A bubble which we have been chronicling here in recent weeks. Needless to say, a Pfizer-AstraZeneca combination valued at roughly $100 billion would create the largest healthcare company by revenue and likely serve as the pharma bubble "peak "indicator very much like the Blackstone IPO marked the financial top in 2007.

Ever since Goldman's anti-HFT Op-Ed less than a month ago, and since the even more recent full-hearted support by Goldman of Michael Lewis' most recent entry into the anti-HFT crusade (one promoting the Goldman-supported IEX exchange), one thing has been clear: the days of market structure in its current format are numbered. This was further confirmed after Goldman exited both its legacy Spear Leeds & Kellogg designated market making post at the NYSE, and is said to be winding down its market-dominating dark pool, Sigma X. Sure enough, Post reports that just three weeks after the Gary Cohn Op-Ed, the SEC is "preparing to remove some high-frequency trading firms."

Almost a month ago, we wrote "This Is The One Financial Product Now Targeted By The HFT Swarm", in which after briefly perusing the Virtu S-1 filing, we concluded that "one product stood out. It is highlighted on the chart below: FX."

We are happy to report that this time the mainstream media is following our reports much more closely then five years ago, because overnight none other than Bloomberg came out with "High-Frequency Traders Chase Currencies as Stock Volume Recedes" in which we read, guess what, "Forget the equity market. For high-frequency traders, the place to be is foreign exchange." But our readers already knew this of course...

• Why did Yellen use criminals in her employment case studies? Hilsenrath explainz (Hilsenrath)
• GM avoided defective switch redesign in 2005 to save a dollar each (Reuters)
• Xuzhou Zhongsen Said to Avert Bond Default on Guarantor Aid  (BBG)
• France's New Finance Minister Faces Fiscal Challenge (WSJ)
• The magic is gone: Draghi’s Attempt to Talk Down Euro Lost on Traders (BBG)
• Another John Kerry smashing success: U.S. Gambit on Mideast Peace Talks Falters (WSJ)
• Combat-Ready China Military Seen as Xi’s Goal in Graft Battle (BBG)
• Huge earthquake off Chile's north coast triggers tsunami (Reuters)
• Pressure rises on Gross as investors pull $3.1 billion from Pimco's flagship fund (Reuters)

The stock market really was rigged... “It’s 2009,” Katsuyama says. “This had been happening to me for almost two years. There’s no way I’m the first guy to have figured this out. So what happened to everyone else?” The question seemed to answer itself: Anyone who understood the problem was making money off it...