Opening Bell: 7.5.16

Bad Debt Piled in Italian Banks Looms as Next Crisis (WSJ)
Britain’s vote to leave the EU has produced dire predictions for the U.K. economy. The damage to the rest of Europe could be more immediate and potentially more serious. Nowhere is the risk concentrated more heavily than in the Italian banking sector. In Italy, 17% of banks’ loans are sour. That is nearly 10 times the level in the U.S., where, even at the worst of the 2008-09 financial crisis, it was only 5%. Among publicly traded banks in the eurozone, Italian lenders account for nearly half of total bad loans.

Snapchat’s Teen Fans Wince as App Catches On With Their Folks (WSJ)
Whether Snapchat can maintain its fanatical teen base, which is popular with advertisers, while at the same time broadening its appeal beyond youth, will have major ramifications for the app, which investors value at $16 billion. It can mean the difference between achieving massive scale like Facebook Inc., the social-network juggernaut that has 1.6 billion users and is valued at $330 billion, or remaining a large niche service like Twitter Inc., a once-formidable rival that has lost three-fourths of its market value as its growth has stagnated. On Twitter, teens now routinely complain about parents joining Snapchat—“Lmao I’m so done my friends parents got snapchat,” tweeted Mr. Zeikos in May.

Brexit Withdrawals Prompt Halt of $3.9 Billion Property Fund (Bloomberg)
Standard Life Investments suspended trading in its 2.9 billion-pound ($3.9 billion) U.K. Real Estate fund on Monday, the strongest signal yet that the turmoil from the Brexit vote will probably hit the property market. The fund, which invests in a mix of prime commercial real estate assets, was halted at midday and the decision will be reviewed every 28 days, the Edinburgh, Scotland-based fund manager said in a statement. Standard Life adjusted the value of the underlying assets by 5 percent last week.

U.K. Business Expectations Fall ‘Off a Cliff’ After Brexit Vote (Bloomberg)
U.K. business confidence dropped and pessimism about the economic outlook almost doubled in the week after Britain voted to leave the European Union, according to a survey. An index published by YouGov Plc and the Centre for Economics and Business Research on Tuesday tumbled to 105 from 112.6 in the three days ended June 23, the referendum date. The survey, which was carried out between June 28 and July 1, also found the proportion of businesses that are pessimistic about the economic outlook climbed to 49 percent from 25 percent.

Joey Chestnut eats way back to Nathan's hot dog eating title (UPI)
Chestnut, known as "Jaws," scarfed down 70 hot dogs and buns while thousands watched at Nathan's Famous. The event, marking its 100th anniversary was shown live on ESPN3 and tape-delayed on ESPN. Chestnut, 32, had won eight titles in a row before losing to 24-year-old Matt Stonie, known as "The Megatoad, last year. In 2013, he set the record with 69 hot dogs in 10 minutes. Stonie ate 62 hot dogs last year, two more than Chestnut. They both are San Jose, Calif., residents...Chestnut said Stonie "woke up the sleeping giant" when he beat him out last year.

Guilty Ex-Barclays Trio Ends Another Libor Chapter for London (Bloomberg)
Just over four years since Barclays paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for fixing the benchmark rate, Jonathan Mathew, 35, Jay Merchant, 45, and Alex Pabon, 38, were found guilty of conspiring with other Barclays employees to rig the London interbank offered rate.

Global investment banks have slowest first half since 2012 (Reuter)
Global investment banking fees fell by nearly a quarter in the first half of 2016 from a year earlier as market volatility hit capital markets and M&A deal making, Thomson Reuters data published on Monday showed. Global fees for services ranging from merger and acquisitions advisory services to capital markets underwriting fell 23 percent to $37.1 billion at the end of June, the slowest first half for fees since 2012.

A Trump administration could send bitcoin prices spiking (CNBC)
The price of the digital currency could climb in the event of Trump winning the U.S. presidential election, which some market commentators expect to lead to market turmoil. "If Donald Trump becomes president of the U.S., there is the very real prospect of turmoil on world markets — the Economist Intelligence Unit ranks his presidency within the Top 10 global risks," said Windsor Holden, head of forecasting & consultancy at Juniper Research, in a statement. "However, bitcoin trading would thrive in such an environment, at least until the impact on major fiat currencies becomes clear."

As 2-and-20 Fees Under Fire, Asia Hedge Funds Seek to Cut Costs (Bloomberg)
Hedge fund platforms in Asia, which traditionally have helped fledgling firms with a few million dollars set up shop, are now seeing bigger managers turn to them to help save as much as 90 percent of their annual operating costs. That’s signaling a fundamental change in the economics of the hedge fund business, as investors are balking at the hefty "2-and-20" fees that were once a fixture in the industry and compliance costs are spiraling higher.

Naked Man Who Brought Times Square To Standstill Has Been Charged (Gothamist)
Krit McClean was arrested for public lewdness and disorderly conduct, according to the Post. On Thursday, he took off his clothes in Duffy Square around 7 a.m., and, a Gray Line bus tour ticket seller told us, Times Square Alliance workers told him to put his clothes back on. McClean did but then took them off again and eventually went up the red stairs above the TKTS booths on West 47th Street. By 7:40 a.m., the police were on the scene, trying to convince McClean to come down. He spent the next hour and a half dancing, running and squatting, while yelling disparate statements, like asking for Donald Trump or yelling "I love fashion! It’s taught me so much."