Opening Bell: 10.29.14
Facebook Vows Aggressive Spending (WSJ)
On a conference call with analysts, finance chief David Wehner said he expects Facebook to incur higher expenses than normal in the quarters to come, in the wake of big investments in both engineering talent and acquisitions. He expects costs to rise as much as 75% for the year. Mr. Wehner and other Facebook executives urged analysts and investors to look further into the future, and not just at the financial results before them. Mr. Zuckerberg kicked off the call by stressing the company’s long-term goals stretch more than a decade into the future and require “investing aggressively.”
Deutsche Bank Swings to Third-Quarter Loss (WSJ)
Deutsche Bank AG swung to a net loss in the third quarter after the lender boosted its reserves to cover fines from pending litigation. Germany’s largest bank on Wednesday reported a net loss of €94 million ($119.7 million) for the quarter, compared with a net profit of €41 million in the same period last year. The loss was expected after the bank said last week that it would book €894 million in additional litigation reserves in the quarter, which was more than analysts had expected. The lender has now set aside €3 billion to cover fines from pending investigations.
Pimco Replaced by BlackRock at $6 Billion Prudential Fund (Bloomberg)
Pacific Investment Management Co., seeking to stem redemptions after its co-founder Bill Gross left unexpectedly, was dropped as manager of a $6.16 billion strategy offered by a unit of Prudential Financial Inc. Pimco, based in Newport Beach, California, will be replaced as subadviser of the AST Pimco Total Return Bond Portfolio by BlackRock Inc. and Loomis Sayles & Co., according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. Pimco will also be dropped as manager of the U.S. fixed-income portion of the AST Advanced Strategies Portfolio, which had $8.75 billion in assets as of Sept. 30.
Translation Adds Complexity to European Central Bank’s Supervisory Role (WSJ)
The European Central Bank’s impending role as supervisor of the eurozone’s largest banks is reviving an issue that has long complicated its activities: the language in which it does business. About a quarter of the 120 banks the ECB will start supervising in November have chosen their national language, rather than English, for written correspondence with their new regulators. The ECB’s draft framework text for supervision made it clear it wanted banks to use English, its working language since its creation in 1998. But the ECB can’t insist on that provision because European law allows citizens to contact European institutions in any of the European Union’s 24 official languages. After negative feedback from banks, the final version of the regulation lost the reference to seeking an explicit agreement to use English.
Split MSG business would be a garden of delight for investors (NYP)
MSG, which is exploring a possible separation into two publicly traded entities — one for its Knicks, Rangers and MSG Network and the other for the venues — could be worth as much at $9.7 billion after the separation, the Wall Street pros said.
How a $1,000-an-hour escort rose to the top 1% of her field by playing the 'perfect woman' for Wall Street (DM)
Svetlana Z, as she refers to herself, moved to New York from Chelyabinsk, Russia, when she was 19 years old and had $300 to her name. Lured by the promise of quick money, she entered the escort industry and made a small fortune by catering to investment bankers, 90per cent of them married. 'Mostly, I offered understanding,' she wrote for Medium. 'The truth is, even for guys who hire me for three or four hours, the sex usually only takes about 15 minutes.' Not bad for $1,000 an hour. Svetlana - who describes herself as 5ft 7in, 119lbs, with long legs, hazel eyes, full lips and a slender figure - remarks that when it did come to sex, however short-lived, massaging her client's ego was key.
Around 98per cent of men wanted to go down on her, and 80per cent of them would ask if she had come, or insist she had multiple orgasms before they did. This wasn't about her pleasure, of course, it was their need to 'prove themselves.'
Svetlana faked orgasms with relative ease and presumably on nearly every occasion. Her mind, she says, was always in business mode. She refers to one instance in which a client asked to pour honey all over her before they had sex. She agreed - but only after he agreed to pay triple her hourly rate - and she spent the whole rampant session mulling over cleaning the sheets and re-doing her hair and make-up...Svetlana was highly tactful when it came to demanding the best. Rather than appear spoiled in her requests to fly first class while travelling with clients, she would weave silky allusions into the conversation. For example, she would claim that her 'really long legs' would get cramped in coach, which would hinder her 'flexibility' and thus affect her 'd***y-style' performance...And perhaps in part to her dogged attention to detail and her carefully considered approach, she managed to avoid any dangerous or traumatic experiences.When she once caught a client attempting to videotape them having sex on the sly, she simply grabbed his phone, erased the footage, and told him to 'get the hell out' of her apartment. Another threatened to call the cops on her if she didn't give him free sex, so she threatened to post his phone number to a gay escort listing...Then there was the client who had sex with her for a full hour straight, all the while making 'woo woo woo' train noises. Aside from these mentions, life as a high-class escort appears to have suited Svetlana. Couples were her favorite sorts of clients, and she got to charge double the fee for the same amount - often less - of work. 'That's the cool thing about capitalism,' she points out.
Greenspan Sees Turmoil as QE Boost to Markets Unwinds (Bloomberg)
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said he doesn’t think the Fed can unwind years of extraordinary stimulus without causing turmoil in financial markets. “I don’t think it’s possible,” Greenspan said during an event today at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, responding to a question about the likely market impact of the Fed’s exit.
Norway’s $860 Billion Wealth Fund Bets Big on Modi’s India (Bloomberg)
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, will increase its holdings “significantly” in India as Prime Minister Narendra Modi opens Asia’s third-largest economy to investments and competition. The fund today revealed that it raised its holdings of Indian bonds and stocks to 0.9 percent of its fixed-income and equities portfolios, as part of a broader plan to increase its presence in emerging markets and generate bigger returns. “India is one of those markets where you should expect that we will continue to increase our investments over time, significantly,” Yngve Slyngstad, chief executive officer of the Oslo-based fund, said in an interview after a press conference today. “Relative to the size of the economy our investments are smaller than you would expect.”
Exclusive: SEC probing private equity performance figures - sources (Reuters)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is examining how private equity firms report a key metric of their past performance when they market new funds to investors, as the regulator boosts its scrutiny of the industry, according to people familiar with the matter. At issue is how private equity firms report how they calculate average net returns in past funds in their marketing materials, the sources said.
Firm: Free beer for workers who finish timesheets (UPI)
The Tapserver at Minneapolis firm Colle + McVoy asks employees to scan their keycards and the system then verifies that the worker's time sheet has been completed. The worker is rewarded with their choice of beer from the machine's "multi-keg beer deployment system," which includes several different brews. "The technology used includes several Arduinos, a Node-based server, solenoids and a Raspberry Pi. The software was written to tie seamlessly with Colle + McVoy's timekeeping application," the company said. The company said timesheet completion has improved by 90 percent since the machine was deployed.