Business

Just when you thought it was saffe to pile back into the hedge fund hotel that is Valeant Pharma, the stock prices collapses 18% in 2 days back to 3-month lows. Following a Wells Fargo downgrade on Friday to underperform (due to concerns over the firm's ability to pay back its debt), Deutsche Bank piled on implicitly today with a downgrade for Express Scripts in light of Anthem's over-paying arguments which Jim Chanos claims will weigh on the entire PBM space.

More pain for the hedge fund hotel...As it plunges 18% in 2 days...

Earlier today, we highlighted the noticeable weakness in European PMIs which largely missed expectations on - what else? - sluggish global demand and generally anemic economic growth.

Specifically, Germany’s PMI fell for the second month in a row in February, declining to 53.8 from 54.5 the previous month. Worryingly, the manufacturing PMI slumped 50.2, missing estimates by a wide margin and hitting its lowest level in 15 months.

With a growing number of Americans appearing willing to jump on the socialism-by-any-other-name bandwagon, JPMorgan CIO Michael Cembalest digs into the details of Bernie Sanders' tax proposals. As the following chart sums up so extremely, his plan would certainly represent a unique and unprecedented event in the history of US taxation, if it were enacted.

While the algos are closely following every momentum-generating uptick in global equities on the back of yet another short squeeze in crude, one asset class that has been roundly ignored are Treasurys, which have refused to follow the equity euphoria and have in fact roundtripped today's entire risk on move, suggesting that once again, "bonds aren't buying it."

For the longest time it was Wall Street's best kept secret: keep Unicorns - companies with valuations over $1 billion - hidden in their gilded stables (aka private) for as long as possible, and allow Silicon Valley billionaires and venture capitalists to overbid each other by investing modest amounts at ever more ridiculous valuations, permitting book-marking based on a handful private investment rounds to hit stratospheric levels and allowing the investors to take out loans backed by sky-high valuations as collateral.