Opening Bell: 5.5.16
Visium Clients Ask to Pull $1.5 Billion (WSJ)
Clients have asked to pull about $1.5 billion from Visium Asset Management LP, a hedge-fund firm under investigation by federal authorities over alleged insider trading, people familiar with the matter said. The redemptions, which include one-third of clients’ money in the firm’s flagship fund, are due to be paid by the end of the second quarter, these people said.
Stanley Druckenmiller Cites Similarities to 2008 Crisis (WSJ)
Billionaire trader Stanley Druckenmiller on Wednesday warned that this moment reminds him of the period before the 2008 financial crisis. “The bull market is exhausting itself,” he said at the Ira Sohn Investment Conference in New York. The Federal Reserve, he said, is to blame. By keeping interest rates so low, the Fed is “raising the odds of the economic tail risk they are trying to avoid.” It is an “ephemeral sugar high.”
World's Top Currency Trader Sees Dollar Judgment Day With Jobs (Bloomberg)
Traders are girding for a payrolls report that may dictate whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates in June, according to Steven Englander, Citigroup’s global head of Group-of-10 currency strategy. A private report showed U.S. employers added fewer workers last month than forecast, muddying the outlook for benchmark borrowing costs.
Fed’s Kashkari Says Central Bank Won’t Move Aggressively to Raise Rates (WSJ)
Speaking at a town hall event in Rochester, Minn., Mr. Kashkari said the Fed is waiting to act until it has data to support a move. He said he expects moderate economic growth. “If we [raised rates] aggressively, we would be setting the brakes on the economy,” he said. “You will see us move when the data allows.”
Drunk Driving Suspect Allegedly Confuses Catering Truck For Own Car (HP)
A college student at Ohio’s Bowling Green State University is facing charges of drunk driving and receiving stolen property after police said she stole a catering truck. Monique Vanderhulst, 19, was pulled over by police on Saturday after the owners of All Occasions Catering reported their truck was stolen, according to the Toledo Blade. The vehicle had been left running while the owner was inside of a nearby building making a delivery. When he came out, the vehicle was gone. Police said Vanderhulst went on a wild ride before finally being pulled over. She was reportedly observed hitting at least one vehicle, running over curbs in a university parking lot, and driving erratically enough to cause contents to spill from the truck, the Sentinel-Tribune reports.
ECB Decrees Slow Death of 500-Euro Note in Fight Against Crime (Bloomberg)
Citing “concerns that this banknote could facilitate illicit activities,” the ECB said in a statement on Wednesday that it will stop producing the bill from the end of 2018. The note will remain legal tender and can be exchanged at any central bank in the euro area for an unlimited period.
Larry Summers: 'Overwhelmingly likely' blockchains will change finance forever (CNBC)
"I'm reasonably confident ... that the blockchain will change a great deal of financial practice and exchange," he said Tuesday from the Consensus 2016 event in midtown Manhattan, adding that his bet on the future of finance would see "40 years from now, blockchain and all that followed from it will figure more prominently in that story than will bitcoin."
Why Silicon Valley Recruiters Are Flocking to Ontario (Bloomberg)
The University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, has become a magnet for recruiters at Google parent Alphabet Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., who seek the school’s entrepreneurially minded engineering graduates. Employers and school leaders say the students understand how to translate engineering projects into viable businesses. The school’s graduates are the second-most-frequently hired in Silicon Valley behind students from University of California, Berkeley, according to a 2015 report by Startup Compass Inc., which tracks small and midsize businesses.
Florida lawyer who had sex with her clients at a jail and used drugs has been disbarred (NYDN)
Daytona Beach public defender Linda Dawn Hadad, 43, was disbarred because she “engaged in a pattern of misconduct that included illegal drug use and sexual relationships with clients,” the Florida Bar announced in a statement Friday. Hadad, who had been practicing in the state since 2002, had sex with two Volusia County Jail inmates so much that the warden cut down on her access to the attorney visitation area, according to court filings. She also had phone sex with inmates, the documents showed. She admitted she took Xanax, Adderall, oxycodone and Lortabs with no prescription and also used cocaine, crack, ecstasy, marijuana, meth and acid, according to court documents cited by WFTV. Investigators said she rented cars for an inmate in exchange for drugs.