Good morning, happy summer solstice, here's what you need to know:
- After opening in freefall, Asian markets stabilized when the Bank of China stepped in with a massive liquidity injection to dampen surging SHIBOR rates — though many exchanges still ended in negative territory. Japan's Nikkei 225 closed up 1.66%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng finished down -0.59% and Australia's ASX fell -0.41%.
- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff called an emergency cabinet meeting after a fourth day of nationwide protests saw police and protesters fighting in the streets. This despite many cities agreeing to reverse a controversial fare increases for public transit yesterday.
- Perhaps little noticed among yesterday's market bloodbath was turmoil in the secondary municipal bond market, which saw benchmark yield rates spike 20 basis points Thursday. The rout even filtered through to initial offerings, where four sales worth more than $1.7 billion were postponed.
- ETFs got rolled by Thursday's bond crunch, with many funds falling below the value of their underlying assets, the FT's Arash Massoudi, Tom Braithwaite and Stephen Foley report. Emerging market ETFs were among the worst hit, and Citi had to stop taking redemption orders on underlying ETF assets after one trading desk reached its allocated risk limits.
- Greece faced fresh uncertainty as talks to revive the shuttered state broadcaster collapsed, the Wall Street Journal's Nektaria Stamolui and Gabriele Steinhauser reported. We've explained the situation previously — Greek citizens are not happy that PM Antonis Samaras unilaterally shut down the country's equivalent of PBS. Now a junior member of the country's ruling coalition is threatening to break away. There have also been rumors some Eurozone central banks are refusing to roll over Greek bonds, WSJ says. Bond yields were spiking.
- In an unusual move, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard published a press release this morning expanding on his dovish dissent to this week's FOMC announcement. He noted inflation remains well below targets, and said the committee erred in both its assessment of the state of the economy and its subsequent to telegraph that it would be winding down asset purchases.
- Facebook announced you can now take videos on Instagram. The clips are 15 seconds long, more than double the length of clips on Twitter's Vine app. You can also add filters.
- Samsung unveiled three new products: a hybrid Windows 8/Android device, a super-thing tablet, and a Galaxy camera. The Wall Street Journal's Ben Mooney and Min-Jeong Lee say more than $27 billion-worth of market cap have been wiped out in the last two weeks as investors fear flagging revenues.
- The Wall Street Journal's Andy Pasztor reports the FAA is set to relax rules on using gadgets in airplanes. "For airliners that pass stringent tests," passengers will now enjoy "essentially unlimited" use of cellphones and other electronic devices, he writes.
- The New York Times' Michael Shear says the White House is now playing a more active if yet-stealthy role in ensuring Congress passes an immigration bill. Lingering issues on border security have stalled the law's approval.
BONUS: Don't miss all the goodies our sports crew compiled after the Heat won the NBA Finals last night.
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