Business

Over the weekend, we gave the Dallas Fed a chance to respond to a Zero Hedge story corroborated by at least two independent sources, in which we reported that Federal Reserve members had met with bank lenders with extensive exposure to the US oil and gas sector and, after parsing through the complete bank books, had advised banks to i) not urge creditor counterparties into default, ii) urge asset sales instead, and iii) ultimately suspend mark to market in distressed instances.

Italian bank stocks are crashing (with BMPS down 40% year-to-date) as Reuters reports that investors are growing increasingly nervous about how the sector will cope with lower interest rates and a 200 billion euro ($218 billion) pile of loans that are unlikely to be repaid.

Remember when showing 'progress' in Europe was as simple as pointing to your high stock market or low bond yields to "prove" everything is awesome.

Since 2012, when Mr Hollande came to power, more than 600,000 people have joined the ranks of the unemployed at a time when joblessness has decreased in most of the other large European economies.

Via Christoph Gisiger of Finanz Und Wirtschaft,

Wall Street veteran Art Cashin warns that bankruptcies in the US oil industry could cause severe stress in the financial system. He believes the rate hike of the Federal Reserve was a mistake.

Do you have some extra space in your garage or attic? Or perhaps you own an oil tanker you aren’t currently using. Or maybe you have a storage unit that’s got a little extra room next to an old mattress and box springs.

If so, you may want to call up oil producers in North Dakota and ask if they’d care to send you some free oil, because the crude glut is now so acute that the Koch brothers are actually charging $0.50/bbl to take low grade oil at their Flint Hills Resources refining arm.