Succinctly summarizing the positive and negative news, data, and market events of the week...
Positives
- Goldman has flashbacks of 2007, will launch Liberty Harbor Capital [9] to invest in high yield debt. What could possibly go wrong [10]?
- Blackstone is a believer – Firm eyes opportunity in European Retail, having acquired ~$1.2bn of shopping mall developer Multi Corp's debt
- U.S. factory orders rose 3% in February - If one were to dig a bit deeper than the headline [11], however…
- Domestic vehicle sales rose to 15.22mm though less than expectations [12]
- CNBC declares the 'return of the retail investor', citing mutual fund & ETF net inflows of $4.5bn last week
- The quest for 2% inflation begins: The BOJ launches its latest easing program [13] - this time will be different! (more here [14])
- Slowly working up to 100… Fed's Wednesday POMO provides $3bn in direct monetization of U.S. debt liquidity to the economy [15]
- A Facebook un-phone.
- Retail gasoline prices dropped to $3.63, the lowest since 2/14.
- Dow closes week green from Cyprus [16].
- S&P and Nikkei lead the way in YTD total returns [17]
Negatives
- U.S. ISM manufacturing index falls to 51.3 [18] in March
- Goldman's 'Swirlogram' indicates accelerating global slowdown [19]
- The elephant in the room house: downward pricing pressure looms due to foreclosure backlog [20]
- Netherlands on the brink [21] of becoming the next European domino
- Euro Area unemployment hits an all time high [22] in February
- Unicredit (Italy's largest bank) CEO says 'bail-in's' using depositors money is acceptable [23]
- Swiss 2yr rates back down to January lows, as European Financial stocks re-couple with Credit [24]
- Initial jobless claims post biggest miss [25] since November
- Saxo Bank CEO delivers rare truthiness - "The problem is not Cyprus. The problem is the Euro [26]"
- U.S. Non-Manufacturing ISM misses big [27]…
- March ADP also misses big [28]
- Treasury Yields drop to 4 month lows.
- Stocks close red for the week.
- Non-Farm Payrolls miss dramatically [29], with the number of people in the labor force ay 1979 levels.
Additional
Mario Draghi smugly responds to Zero Hedge [30]
(h/t @ZH_Crown)