TheChek News Flow

Last week, during which the S&P 500 climbed 1.4%, BofAML clients were net sellers of US

stocks for the eighth consecutive week, in the amount of $1.4bn—suggesting clients still

doubt the sustainability of the rally. This is the longest selling streak since Oct-Dec 2010,

when clients sold stocks for 12 consecutive weeks. (Following this, they were cumulative

net buyers during the first quarter of 2011 and for the year as a whole). Similar to the

prior week, all three client groups (hedge funds, private clients and institutional clients)

were net sellers, led by institutional clients. Net sales were chiefly in large caps, while

small caps saw inflows. Buybacks by corporate clients decelerated slightly last week, but

were still elevated. On a four-week average basis, buyback activity is tracking at its highest

levels in two years (see chart below), and year-to-date cumulative buybacks by our clients

are 45% above year-ago levels.

Last week clients were broad-based net sellers of single stocks across all ten sectors,

led by Financials and Consumer Discretionary stocks. Only ETFs saw inflows last week.

Telecom is the sector with the longest net selling trend (for the last four weeks), while

Health Care, Tech and Industrials have all seen three weeks of outflows. Both cyclical

and defensive sectors in aggregate have seen net sales each of the last few weeks, with

bigger net sales of cyclical sectors in aggregate.

• Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, and Energy saw net sales by hedge funds,

institutional clients, and private clients alike last week. No sector saw net buying by all

three groups.

• Buybacks of Materials stocks were near record levels again last week. Materials,

Discretionary and Industrials have contributed most to the YoY increase in buyback

activity by our corporate clients.

• Pension fund clients were net sellers of us stocks for the third week, led by ETFs

and Financials stocks. Staples and Tech stocks saw the largest net buying by this

group last week. Net sales were entirely due to small caps. See pg 9 for details.

22-MAR-2016 10:40:21

MUNICH/PARIS, March 22 (Reuters) - German industrial group Siemens SIEGn.DE is prepared to buy Spanish-French wind power joint venture Adwen as part of the planned merger of its wind assets with those of Spain's Gamesa GAM.MC, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

Citing sources close to the negotiations, the newspaper said Siemens Chief Executive Joe Kaeser was now ready to buy French state-owned energy firm Areva's AREVA.PA stake in the venture as part of the cost of doing the deal.

Siemens declined to comment on the report.

Siemens and Gamesa plan to combine their wind assets to form the world's biggest wind farm manufacturer with approximately 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in annual sales, overtaking current market leader Vestas VWS.CO of Denmark.

But the deal has stumbled over the Adwen venture.

Two sources told Reuters last week that Siemens did not want to fulfill certain elements of contracts won by Adwen, which included an obligation to develop and build a jumbo offshore turbine in France. (Full Story)

Siemens' Chairman Gerhard Cromme is due to meet French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday morning, according to Macron's agenda.

change their nature as we engage with them. Oblique approaches are most effective in

difficult terrain or where outcomes depend on interactions with other people.”

John Kay, Obliquity – Why our goals are best achieved indirectly, 2010

This must be the most frequently asked question we have had from investors in the

past three years. Having taken a fresh look at Vivendi’s recent moves and stated

ambitions, and reviewed Vincent Bolloré’s investment strategy over the past 30 years,

we believe we have a clearer picture.

We think his objective is to build a leading media and content player with the scale to

leverage the rising demand for content and entertainment worldwide. In particular, we

think that with Vivendi, Mr Bolloré, being a pragmatist, will seek to exploit opportunities

created by the uneven penetration of music, video and game services around the

world, in particular in France, Southern Europe, Africa and, to a lesser extent, emerging

markets.

The new Vivendi is different, both in terms of what it wants to become and in terms of

how it wants to become it. The Bolloré group has shown that the biggest opportunities

require upfront investment, patience and persistence (Africa, batteries, Havas) that are

initially difficult to capture in a DCF model or P/E multiples.

Investing in Vivendi today requires accepting Vincent Bolloré’s philosophy on complex

and long-term investments in new or changing industries: “We can invest for 30 to 40

years. Long term projects and investments can only be made in controlled grouped like

ours. We do nothing by chance. Projects are slowly matured. One investment leads to

another one, everything is connected in what we do” 1.

Connect the dots of Vivendi’s various moves in the past two years and a coherent,

albeit complex, pattern emerges. In short, Vivendi offers exposure to two exciting

growth stories: music streaming and African pay-TV/content, and exposure to one of

the largest restructuring stories in European media: Canal France.

Saudi Arabia is prepared to sign up to an oil output freeze next month even without Iran taking part, a senior Opec delegate said, potentially removing one of the major obstacles to a deal among big producers.

Some of the world’s biggest oil exporters will meet in Doha on April 17 to discuss restraining output. It follows a provisional agreement reached in February by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela to freeze production at January levels.

“There is agreement from many countries to go along with a freeze, why make it contingent on Iran,” said the delegate.

The comments contrast with those from Gulf officials last month, which suggested any deal was conditional on Iran, Saudi Arabia’s Opec rival, taking part alongside other big producer countries.

Iran sought to increase production and exports after the lifting of sanctions against its oil industry in January. Iranian officials have until now shown no willingness to back any deal that would result in restricting its own output.

Questions have been raised among Gulf delegates about the country’s ability to ramp up output, suggesting this could be one reason for compliance even without Iran.

“Despite all the bragging, we have yet to see what Iran can do,” said the delegate.

Abdalla El-Badri, Opec’s secretary-general, said on Monday at a news conference in Vienna: “Maybe in the future they will join the group. They [Iran] have some conditions about their production.”

About 15 Opec and non-Opec countries — accounting for two-thirds of global oil output — have so far supported an oil freeze, Qatar’s energy minister Mohammed Bin Saleh Al-Sada said last week.

A provisional deal has helped to support prices and reverse negative market sentiment toward oil. Brent crude was at $41.47 on Wednesday, up 53 per cent since hitting a 2016 intraday low of $27.10 a barrel.

“Look at what it [the move towards the oil freeze] did to change the psyche of the market,” said the delegate. “Now the market can see people are gathering, people are communicating. This collaborative element has helped the price.”

Hedge funds and other speculators have dramatically increased their bets on a higher oil price in the past several weeks. Their combined net long positions in Nymex and ICE WTI are now at 172m barrels, from just 35m barrels on January 12.

The delegate said he predicted higher oil prices by the end of the year, as excess supplies fell.

A sense of urgency among all producers to improve the economic situation has been a catalyst to better engagement between producers, he added.

Russia, he said, was now “taking a leading role” in engaging with other Opec producers. The country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia had improved, he added.

Although a production freeze at January levels was most likely, the delegate said, he left the door open for more discussion on which marker is used. “We’ll see who did what in January, February and March. Then maybe we can find numbers that add more credence in the market place,” he added.