Economy
Following the country's soft GDP data last week, China's central bank cut the reserve requirement ratio for all banks by 100 bps to 18.5% yesterday, adding more liquidity to the world's second-largest economy to combat slowing growth. Despite the news, Asian shares tumbled today feeling pressure from the country's move on margin trading on Friday. China's GDP is still expected to fall to a quarter-century low of around 7% this year from 7.4% in 2014, even with the additional stimulus.

ECB president Mario Draghi said Saturday that Europe is rooting for Greece to resolve its problems, but the Hellenic Republic is the only party that can save itself. Ongoing talks between Athens and its creditors have been going painfully slow, with the latter insisting on a set of detailed structural reforms to approve €7.2B in aid for the cash-strapped country. Draghi also referred to a comment he made in August 2012 - when pressed by reporters about a Grexit - affirming that the euro "cannot be reversed."

Oil prices eased from early highs this morning after Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said production in the world's biggest crude exporter would stay near record peaks of around 10M bpd in April. "I have said many times we will always be happy to supply to our customers with what they want. Now they want 10 million," Naimi told Reuters. Brent crude fell to $63.76 a barrel, down from an intraday peak of $64.34, while U.S. crude dropped to $56.03/bbl, from an earlier high of $56.65.

Saudi Arabia's Tadawul All Share Index surged 4% on Sunday after the Kingdom announced last week it would open its $530B stock market to direct foreign investment from June 15. Final rules will be published on May 4. Up to now, foreigners have been restricted to buying Saudi shares indirectly through swaps or ETFs.

Stocks
As tax jumps on U.K. banks become increasingly more painful, HSBC (NYSE:HSBC) and Standard Chartered (OTCPK:SCBFF) are weighing the possibility of calling it quits on their London home. The banks, which make most of their profits in Asia, face a combined $2B bill this year under the annual U.K. bank tax, up from $1.5B last year and almost double what they paid in 2013. HSBC would probably move back to Hong Kong, where it moved from in 1993, while StanChart would likely relocate to Singapore, where most of its businesses are already run. However, the price-tag of moving could also be heavy. Analysts estimate the cost to be between $1.5B-$2.5B per bank.

Lloyds says it will support plans by Britain's Conservative party to sell billions of pounds of government shares in the bank to private retail investors if they win May's general election. The government has so far unloaded almost half of the 43% stake it was left with following the Lloyds' (NYSE:LYG) bailout during the financial crisis, although so far, all of the sales have been to institutions such as pension funds and insurers.

In one of the largest real-estate deals so far this year, warehouse and distribution center owner Prologis (NYSE:PLD) has agreed to buy industrial-property owner KTR Capital Partners for $5.9B. The 60M square foot operating portfolio of KTR Capital comprises 322 properties with about a 95% overlap with Prologis' existing U.S. portfolio. The deal is also expected to be accretive to annual core FFO by about $0.14 per share on a stabilized basis, translating to 7% growth from the midpoint of Prologis' 2015 guidance.

Comcast and Time Warner Cable are slated to sit down for the first time on Wednesday with Justice Department officials in hopes of negotiating concessions to assuage the department's reported opposition to their $45B merger. Bloomberg previously reported that staff attorneys at the DoJ were leaning toward blocking the deal, though any final word would come from senior officials there. TWC took a cliff dive on Friday on the news, closing down 5.4%, while CMCSA ended 2.1% lower.

WhatsApp has surpassed 800M monthly active users three months after reaching 700M, co-founder/CEO Jan Koum shares on his Facebook page. Given the pace of growth, the world's most popular mobile messaging platform has a good shot of reaching 1B before year's end. The disclosure comes 3 weeks after WhatsApp (NASDAQ:FB) began supporting VoIP calls on its Android app (iOS support is on the way), a move that makes it an even bigger headache for carriers who have seen the messaging platform eat into their SMS cash cow.

Really!? Jon Corzine, the former chief executive of MF Global Holdings, is considering starting his own hedge fund, sources told the WSJ. Speaking with about a half-dozen potential investors, Corzine expects the fund to have $150M in AUM if it takes off, including cash from his own personal funds. MF Global filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2011 as worries mounted over its use of new customer money to cover liquidity shortfalls on its massive European sovereign debt bet.

Morgan Stanley is in discussions with New York’s top litigator, Eric Schneiderman, to settle an investigation over its shoddy mortgage bonds that lost value during the financial crisis. The $500M deal would likely include some cash as well as consumer relief, although it is unclear whether the bank would need to boost legal reserves to account for a settlement. Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) may update its legal situation when it reports Q1 earnings this morning.

Genetic Technologies +14.2% premarket after announcing new healthcare centers offering its BREVAGenplus breast cancer testing for at-risk patients, bringing the total to eight. GENE expects new breast health centers to follow suit in 2015 and reiterates it expectations for sales growth to accelerate in the second half of 2015 and beyond.

Amid a leadership crisis at the automaker, Volkswagen's supervisory board plans to meet ahead of its annual shareholder meeting on May 5 to smooth out an effective working relationship between Chairman Ferdinand Piech and Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reports. The executive board at Volkswagen (OTCQX:VLKAY) backed CEO Martin Winterkorn last week, saying they planned to extend his contract next year, but tension seems to remain at the company.

Liberty Global's Belgian unit will buy Royal KPN's (OTCPK:KKPNY) local mobile-phone business Base for €1.33B ($1.43B) as billionaire John Malone enlarges his European cable and telecommunications empire. Telenet (OTCPK:TLGHY) has about 900K mobile subscribers; Base has 3.3M. With Malone expanding through purchases across Europe, Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LBTYA) now owns cable and phone operations stretching from Hungary to the U.K.

Raytheon has agreed to acquire Websense from P-E firm Vista Equity Partners, in a deal that values the network security company at $1.9B, including debt, Reuters reports. The new company will be 80% owned by Raytheon (NYSE:RTN) and Vista will keep a 20% stake. Websense makes software that blocks websites and lets companies inspect network traffic and filter emails for security and hacking threats.

As part of efforts to reduce pollution in the country, Toyota (NYSE:TM) says it will launch two hybrid cars in China in the second half of this year - the Levin Hev and Corolla. Toyota's joint venture with Guangzhou Automobile Group (OTC:GNZUY) will make the Levin Hev, while its venture with FAW Group will manufacture the Corolla.

Meanwhile, Shanghai GM, a joint venture between General Motors (NYSE:GM) and China's SAIC Motor, plans to spend 100B yuan ($16B) over the next five years developing new vehicles. "In terms of new energy, we are keen on power efficiency...and are ardent to go electrical throughout our portfolio," Shanghai GM President Wang Yongqing said on Sunday. With the investment, the automaker expects to seize at least 10% of the Chinese market by creating around 10 new or upgraded models a year through 2020.

Today's Markets:

In Asia, Japan -0.1% to 19634. Hong Kong -2% to 27095. China -1.6% to 4218. India -2% to 27886.
In Europe, at midday, London +0.6%. Paris +0.3%. Frankfurt +1.3%.
Futures at 6:20: Dow +0.5%. S&P +0.5%. Nasdaq +0.4%. Crude +0.6% to $57.67. Gold +0.1% to $1203.70.
Ten-year Treasury Yield -3 bps to 1.85%

Today's economic calendar:

8:30 Chicago Fed National Activity Index

Notable earnings before today's open: BOH, CBU, CHKP, HAL, HAS, LII, MS, MTB, RCL, STI

Notable earnings after today's close: BMI, BRO, BXS, CNI, ELS, FTNT, GLF, HLX, HSTM, HXL, IBM, IEX, LRCX, PKG, RCI, RLI, RMBS, SANM, STLD, UCTT, WAL, WWD, ZION