Opening Bell: 01.04.16

Yahoo’s investors have lost faith in Marissa Mayer (NYP)
Shareholders are pressuring management to sell the core Internet business instead of attempting to spin it off into a separately traded company — a process that could take as long as a year. “The better alternative from both a value and timing standpoint is for Yahoo to just sell the core business right now,” one shareholder told The Post. This person believes a sale of the struggling business, including display advertising and search, will lead to a higher valuation as opposed to waiting for the market to value the new publicly traded entity and risk further decline.

Tech Startups Face Fresh Pressure on Valuations (WSJ)
A number of tech and Internet companies failed to reach their private valuations in their 2015 IPOs, while others later fell below their high-water marks in open trading, sending a chill through the growing crowd of private startups valued at $1 billion. Big investors, concerned about the ability of IPOs to continue to generate hefty returns, in recent months have pulled out of funding rounds and marked down the value of their stakes in private startups.

Fed's Fischer Supports Higher Rates If Markets Overheat (Bloomberg)
“If asset prices across the economy -- that is, taking all financial markets into account -- are thought to be excessively high, raising the interest rate may be the appropriate step,” Fischer said in a speech at the annual American Economic Association meeting in San Francisco on Sunday.

After Winning at Chess, This Computer May Help Decide on Loans (Bloomberg)
Heroz is hoping that the lessons it has learned about how to recreate human judgment to help its computers win at shogi can be applied to the crunching of data for banks when they decide whether customers are credit-worthy, according to Heroz’s Chief Financial Officer Daisuke Asahara. “There are times that computers can see as correct what humans perceive to be wrong,” said Asahara, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in an interview last month.

This Guy Gets His Back Hair Shaved Into Works Of Art (AP)
Mike Wolfe tells KTVB-TV that after years of feeling ashamed of his body hair, he asked a friend in 2008 to trim an American flag on his back rather than undergoing hair removal processes like shaving or waxing. Since then, the two meet up several times throughout the year to design a new creation onto Wolfe's back...Tyler Harding, a former graphic artist who has been friends with Wolfe for more than a decade, says it takes about an hour to complete the artistic trim. And the creations can now be seen on a calendar -- called a Calend-hair -- available for $20. Some proceeds will benefit a charity at Wolfe's church. Designs are uniquely named, such as Grim Reap-hair for October and M-hair-achi Band for May.

Mark Zuckerberg rejects fears of rogue AI (FT)
Tech leaders such as Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and venture capitalist Peter Thiel have warned that rogue AI, or artificial intelligence, could one day threaten the human race. But Mark Zuckerberg has set himself the challenge this year of building his own personal AI assistant, rejecting fears of a super-intelligence running amok as “far-fetched”. In a post on his company’s website late on Sunday, the Facebook founder said he had decided to build a smart machine to control functions in his house and help him work, akin to a disembodied butler. He compared it with Jarvis, an intelligent computer in the movie Iron Man.

Women begin to take their place in elite billionaires’ club (NYP)
According to the new Wealth-X study from UBS Group and PwC (and representing 75 percent of global billionaire wealth, or 1,347 of the richest of the rich), the female billionaire population expanded faster than the male billionaire set over the past two decades.

Oil-Rich but Cash-Dry? This Banker Gets the Call (WSJ)
As turmoil grips the energy business, companies are under increased pressure to find capital, which usually means turning to Wall Street for answers. Mr. Santangelo’s team at Credit Suisse worked on deals accounting for more than one-third of that $19 billion sum, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Dealogic and bank data. Dealogic estimates Credit Suisse earned about $116 million from such offerings, more than any other bank.

The Rise of the High-End Hoodie (WSJ)
Now, as one of the founders of Manhattan-based online delivery service startup Cocktail Courier, Mr. Goldman, 38, has a new wardrobe centerpiece: the hooded sweatshirt. He prefers versions from labels like Saturdays NYC and Rag & Bone. “These aren’t your gym hoodies,” said Mr. Goldman, adding that he doesn’t wear them with Nikes but rather with boots or designer sneakers and jeans or corduroys—even to a business meeting. “You’re still being taken seriously,” he explained, “because these are nice brands with higher quality materials.”

Officer's 'passion for Lego' credited with banana recovery (UPI)
Townsville police said officers from the Forensic Unit were investigating a suspected crime scene in the Alice River suburb Wednesday when an officer recognized a banana sculpture made from Lego bricks. The officer recognized the item as a sculpture by artist Ryan "The Brickman" McNaught, who suffered the thefts of several Lego sculptures from the Strand Ephemera sculpture festival in August. "The forensic officer was over the moon to discover the artwork and if it was not for his passion for Lego and keen detective work, the art piece would have gone undetected," police said in a news release.