06Jul2015 Pre-Market Commentary: GreekNado, Oh Hell No! Asian, European And U.S. Stock Futures Down Sharply, Oil Off 3%

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are broadly lower today with shares in France off the most. The CAC 40 is down 1.61% while Germany’s DAX is off 1.27% and London’s FTSE 100 is lower by 0.57%.

How Chinese Stocks Fell to Earth: ‘My Hairdresser Said It Was a Bull Market’

After Chinese shares hit a seven-year high in June, new investors opened millions of brokerage accounts to play the rally. Many now face big losses despite Beijing’s battle to stem a stock selloff.

Oil falls more than 3 percent after Greek ‘No’

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil prices fell more than 3 percent on Monday after Greece rejected debt bailout terms and China rolled out emergency measures to support its stock markets, adding to concerns about demand at a time of global oversupply.

Regulators Probe Marketing of Hot Private Tech Shares

Securities regulators have launched a broad investigation into whether hedge funds and other investors are improperly selling hot private technology stocks amid a boom in the trading of such shares.

Greek finance minister quits to smooth talks after thunderous ‘No’

ATHENS/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Greece’s outspoken finance minister resigned on Monday, removing a major obstacle to any deal to keep Athens in the euro zone after Greeks voted resoundingly to back the government in rejecting the austerity terms of a bailout.

Chinese Share Sell-off Spills Over to Hong Kong

As Beijing tried to prop up its markets, shares of large companies rose, but small-capitalization stocks continued a retreat and Hong Kong indexes fell.

Presenting The ECB’s “Tools” To Stem Contagion

On Sunday, Greek PM Alexis Tsipras put his political future and, more importantly, the future of the common currency in the hands of Greek voters. It was the political equivalent of pushing one’s chips all in at the poker table and after Sunday’s referendum, Tsipras appears to have been holding a better hand than Junker, Dijsselbloem, and Merkel.

With his grip on power in Greece now virtually unassailable (at least in the short-term), the PM and his finance minister Yanis Varoufakis will need to switch gears quickly. Having won the political battle, they must now fight the economic war, and while Sunday’s plebiscite may have given the world some clarity in terms of what the Greek government’s mandate truly is, we are no closer to solving the stalemate which has brought the Greek banking sector to its knees and threatens to plunge the country even deeper into depression.

In fact, Sunday’s vote represents a kind of worst case scenario for financial markets. The fact that Greeks’ resounding repudiation of austerity may well have been influenced by the IMF’s tacit admission that the country should indeed hold out for debt relief from EU creditors sets a dangerous precedent for Europe. Christine Lagarde effectively forced Brussels and Berlin to blink on the eve of the referendum and you can bet that Podemos in Spain, the Socialists in Portugal, and the Five Star movement in Italy are watching closely to see what happens next.

If Greece proves that the will of the people and the threat of a voter-supported EMU exit is sufficient to secure debt writedowns, the experiment that is t …

China’s economy shows ‘positive changes’: statistics bureau

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economy is showing some positive changes as recent government measures gradually gain traction, but policymakers cannot lower their guard against headwinds crimping growth, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

Frontrunning: July 6

Greece Bailout Referendum: They Voted ‘No’. Now What? (BBG)

Varoufakis Quits as Greece Enters New Showdown With Europe (BBG)

Merkel to Meet Hollande as Greece Told to Make Next Move (BBG)

German line hardens after Greek referendum ‘No’ (Reuters)

BOJ keeps rosy view of regional Japan, watching markets after Greek upset (Reuters)

Oil falls on Greece vote, China stock market turmoil (Reuters)

China Urges U.S.-Iran Compromise 36 Hours to Nuclear Deadline (BBG)

U.S. and Iran: the unbearable awkwardness of defending your enemy (Reuters)

Iraqi jet mistakenly bombs Baghdad district, five killed (Reuters)

U.S. futures fall as Greece uncertainty continues

(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures fell on Monday after Greece rejected debt bailout terms, throwing the future of the country’s euro zone membership into further doubt.

Varoufakis Resigns as Greek Finance Minister

Yanis Varoufakis had threatened to quit if voters approved a referendum on a European bailout, but his move after a no vote may help Greece in any new talks with creditors.

Noble Tightens Bonds With Investors

The beleaguered commodities house’s move to redeem a dollar bond early makes more difference psychologically than materially.

China stocks rise as Beijing’s emergency moves brings some relief

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Chinese stocks rose on Monday, as an unprecedented series of support measures unleashed by Beijing brought some relief to a market whose headlong slide over the past three weeks had raised fears about the stability of the world’s second-biggest economy.
< …

Philip Morris to cut stake in Indonesian unit, could raise over $1 billion

JAKARTA/SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. cigarette giant Philip Morris International Inc plans to sell a stake worth at least $1 billion in Indonesian unit PT HM Sampoerna Tbk to comply with free-float rules, two people familiar with the matter said on Monday.

Op-Ed Contributor: Greece: How to Undo the Damage

A former Greek finance minister argues that the next few days are crucial. Lenders must compromise and Tsipras must stop gambling with the livelihood of future generations.

China’s Bazooka Fails to Overwhelm

China’s stock market bailout probably won’t work. A bigger question is why the country’s leaders felt the need to do it in the first place.

Tumbling Futures Rebound After Varoufakis Resignation; Most China Stocks Drop Despite Massive Intervention

More than even the unfolding “chaos theory” pandemonium in Greece, market watchers were even more focused on whether or not China and the PBOC will succeed in rescuing its market from what is now a crash that threatens social stability in the world’s most populous nation. And, at the open it did. The problem is that as the trading session progressed, the initial 8% surge in stocks faded as every bout of buying was roundly sold into until every other index but the benchmark Shanghai Composite turned sharply red.

The reason the SHCOMP stayed above water is because China’s sovereign fund Huijin was in the market to keep large caps like PetroChina, ICBC up. And then, shortly after it was announced that China’s National Security Fund had ordered all of its managers “not to sell a single stock”, the Composite briefly dipped into the red and the local Chinese bank was on the verge of a total loss of control.

Luckily, by the end of the session, the Composite managed a modest 2.4% recovery even as investors in the vast majority of Chinese shares suffered another day of losses and as the PBOC’s credibility came this close to being fully wiped out.

Elsewhere in Asia, central banks were less forceful and the Nikkei 225 (-2.1%) fell to within close proximity to the 20,000 level while JP …

Stocks, euro fall but no rout after Greek ‘No’

LONDON (Reuters) – Shares fell, the euro stumbled and yields on weaker euro zone economies’ bonds rose after Greece overwhelmingly voted against conditions for a rescue package, but there was no rout and contagion was limited.