Ukraine

Quickly looking at the potential market moving events this week, US payrolls on Friday will be the clear focus. In terms of expectations, our US colleagues are expecting a +225k print which matches the current Bloomberg consensus, while they expect the unemployment rate to drop one-tenth to 5.4%. Elsewhere, Thursday’s UK Election will be closely followed while Greece will once again be front and center.

• Win or lose, Cameron's political career hangs by a thread (Reuters)
• Greece aims for deal with lenders, IMF hard on reforms: minister (Reuters)
• Greek Jobless Legacy Adds Danger for Tsipras as Funds Dry Up (BBG)
• U.S. Will Change Stance on Secret Phone Tracking (WSJ)
• China April HSBC PMI shows biggest drop in factory activity in a year (Reuters)
• Goldman Sachs in Talks to Sell Its Coal Mines (WSJ)
• Takeover Fuel Begins to Flow as S&P 500 Bull Run Makes History (BBG)

There is little sign that Washington and its vassals care about life on Earth.

This conflict is not about Ukraine but about the future of the planet. There is no “Novorussian” or even “Ukrainian” solution. The only possible outcome is a strategic victory of either Russia or the USA which will affect the entire planet. In the following, Rostislav Ishchenko provides a superb overview of the risks and options for both sides and offers the first comprehensive “key” to the apparently incomprehensible behavior of Russia in this conflict.

U.S. Air Force General and NATO supreme allied commander Philip Breedlove is ratcheting up the rhetoric by suggesting to the Senate that Russia is planning to shatter what remains of the fragile ceasefire in Ukraine by launching an imminent offensive. “Many [Russian] actions are consistent with preparations for another offensive,” the general said, without fully explaining how he came to his conclusion.

• Record month ends in pain as biotech, small-caps, Apple tumble (BBG)
• Japan inflation rises for first time in nearly a year (WSJ)
• US Navy starts to accompany ships in strait where Iran seized cargo carrier (WSJ)
• Russia may be readying for new Ukraine offensive: NATO commander (Reuters)
• Big banks use loophole to avoid ban (WSJ)
• China April official PMI shows factories struggling to grow (Reuters)
• CME suspends traders for alleged Sarao-like manipulation (BBG)

Hookers for Brazilians, and MiGs for Russians... what cost is your country obsessed with?

The airline has been working with its banks and the relevant authorities and understands that the funds – less than $5 million – have now been frozen. Although the sum stolen was relatively small in corporate terms and appears to have been tracked and frozen quite quickly, the incident - yet again - highlights the threat posed by cybercrime to today’s banking and financial systems.

Greece must pay $3.8 billion to the IMF over the course of the next month and most analysts believe they will not be in a position to do so unless they can access the outstanding $7.2 billion in funds that form part of the existing program. Ukraine have also been flirting with a default.

Earlier today, while the European markets were caught in the latest myopic buying frenzy resulting from the hope that an imminent termination of Yanis Varoufakis may mean a Greek debt deal is imminent, the Central Union of Municipalities and Communities of Greece ("KEDE") held a meeting in which it said that while it "declares it support for the national negotiating effort", it would not transfer any funds to the Bank of Greece.

Over the past year, special-operations forces have landed in 81 countries.

"I have no way of imagining what the United States will be like in your adulthood and yet I can sense that this country is changing in unsettling ways... Stretch anything far enough and it’ll begin to tear, fragment, break apart.  That, I suspect, may be a reasonable summary of what’s been happening in our twenty-first-century world.  Under stress, things are beginning to crack open... Though you don’t know it yet, you’re already living in an increasingly lopsided world whose stresses only seem to be multiplying. This has been true for the return of plutocracy...It certainly doesn’t look like the American world I’d want to turn over to you."

As the Greek negotiations with the eurogroup and the ‘institutions’ show us with intense and increasing clarity, the notion of the euro being a boat to lift all tides turns out to be full-on bogus. Southern Europe’s nations will be either thrown out or allowed to stay only as debt servants. For now, Germany and Holland prefer to keep everyone on board, but that may still change. It would therefore seem like a good idea for Greece and Italy to make their moves while they can. What Tsipras and Varoufakis must accomplish is to make people understand that what Europe does to the refugees, it will do to its own citizens too.