'China's back is completely up against the wall today'

Reuters/Stringer

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The Federal Reserve is watching China. 

Fed chair Janet Yellen is speaking to the House Committee on Financial Service, and the crux of the testimony is that the Fed remains economic-data dependent and is also paying attention to financial markets. You can read the full testimony here. 

In hedge fund news, Texan hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass, the founder of Hayman Capital, has sent his first letter to investors on a global scale in two years. He argues that China has a problem much bigger than the subprime crisis in 2008 and is already out of money.

"China's back is completely up against the wall today, which is one of the primary reasons why the government is hypersensitive to any comments regarding its reserve levels or a hard landing," he said. 

On Tuesday, the head of trading at Morgan Stanley confirmed Wall Street's worst fear: It has been a horrible first quarter in trading. He later explained why he decided to cut 25% of his fixed-income staff last year.

In other news, Wall Street jobs are leaving New York, Goldman Sachs has transformed its workforce, and there has been a brutal culling of traders over the past five years. 

Here are the top Wall Street headlines at midday:

Billionaire Steve Cohen bankrolled ads slamming John Kasich for being a Wall Street banker - Here's a little a look into where all this Wall Street political money is going.

The oil-trading 'god' has been burned by his bullish bet, but he's not giving up - Prominent oil trader Andrew J. Hall, who runs $2 billion energy and commodities hedge fund Astenbeck Capital, has gotten burned on his bullish bet on oil prices.

The stocks Wall Street analysts love most are getting crushed this year - Wall Street analysts are paid to study companies and recommend winners to investors. So far in 2016, this hasn't gone so well.

One of the most reliable recession indicators may no longer be reliable - Economists have long sought to find the magical indicators that foretell an economic recession.

GM is trying to eat Silicon Valley's lunch - For a car company that's more than 100 years old, General Motors is proving to be very much up to speed with current trends in automotive tech.

BP BOSS: Later this year 'every swimming pool in the world will be full of oil' - BP boss Bob Dudley said Wednesday he was "very bearish" on oil prices for the first half of 2016, but forecast supply and demand would balance in the second half.