Half-interesting Fed minutes; Elon Musk does something else meaningless; dobriy default; and more!
Fed Minutes Flag Value of Liquidity Tools, Sketch Balance Sheet Plans [WSJ]
The minutes said that while cuts to the balance sheet would likely be phased in, Fed officials are considering selling no more than $60 billion in Treasury securities monthly and no more than $35 billion in mortgage-backed securities monthly…. The outlook for the balance sheet came during an FOMC meeting at which Fed officials showed an unexpected hawkishness on interest rate policy. Many officials preferred a half-percentage point interest rate increase to start off their effort to bring high levels of inflation down, but the Fed instead opted for a quarter-percentage point increase because of the uncertainty stemming from the war on Ukraine launched by Russia in late February.
‘It’s meaningless’ — large Tesla shareholder Ron Baron reacts to Elon Musk joining Twitter’s board [CNBC]
“I think it’s meaningless,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday. “It’s a tiny investment. $3 billion for a man who is worth $300 billion. He has Tesla which is worth a trillion (and) on the way to being worth $3 or $4 trillion.”
Baron, who has been a Tesla investor since 2014, added: “There’s no way this could be anything meaningful to him.”
Russia pays dollar-denominated debt in rubles, risking default, after U.S. blocks payment. [NYT]
Credit rating agencies have indicated that payments in a currency different from the one the debt was sold in would count as a default once the grace period expired. Russia’s debt payments that were due on Monday have a 30-day grace period and had no provision for repayment in any currency other than dollars. It would be Russia’s first default on foreign currency debt in more than a century…. JPMorgan Chase was not given permission by the U.S. authorities to process Monday’s bond payment, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. It had previously been cleared to handle five other payments after sanctions were imposed last month, the person said.
Yellen says the aim is ‘maximum pain’ for Russia without hurting the U.S. economy. [NYT]
The measures introduced on Wednesday included “full blocking” sanctions against Sberbank, the largest financial institution in Russia, and Alfa Bank, one of the country’s largest privately owned banks…. Justice Department officials also celebrated the seizing of the Tango, a superyacht owned by the Russian oligarch Viktor F. Vekselberg, and charged a Russian banker, Konstantin Malofeev, with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions.
Bridgewater, Rokos Funds Gain as Macro Soars in Quarter [Bloomberg]
Bridgewater Associates posted a 16.3% return in the first quarter, joining macro funds that are benefiting from increased volatility in global markets…. Chris Rokos’s $11.5 billion Rokos Capital Management ended the first quarter with a gain of about 7%, a person familiar said…. Castle Hook Partners, run by former Soros Fund Management portfolio manager David Rogers, climbed 28% in the quarter after a 14% gain last month.
‘It’s not written in stone, but that would be my guess’: Leon Cooperman joins chorus of billionaire investors warning of a U.S. recession [Fortune]
"I think the Fed has totally missed it, and I think we have a lot of wood to chop," Cooperman told CNBC on Tuesday. "I would think the price of oil or the Fed would push us into a recession in 2023….”
“We’ve borrowed from the future…We’ve had totally inappropriate monetary policies, and I think we have to make up for some of this,” said Cooperman, who is worth an estimated $2.5 billion. “I think we’re in store for a difficult period….”
“Investors understand curbing inflation is tantamount to curbing growth,” he said.