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Opening Bell: 9.26.17

Deutsche Bank is having a no good very bad Monday; Stumpf gets $123.6 million if he walks; Man caught using mannequin torso to cheat California carpool lane; and more.
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Deutsche Bank Slumps to Fresh Record Low on Capital Concerns (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG shares dropped to a record low amid concerns that mounting legal bills, including a looming fine over its pre-crisis mortgage bond business, may force the German lender to raise capital. The shares declined as much as 6.9 percent and traded at 10.71 euros at 12:38 p.m. in Frankfurt, down 6.1 percent. That brings losses to about 53 percent this year. The 38-member Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index slipped 2.4 percent, with Deutsche Bank the worst performer.

Deutsche Bank says to solve problems without help from Berlin (Reuters)
Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) will solve its problems without relying on help from Berlin, Germany's flagship lender said on Monday. "(Chief Executive) John Cryan at no point asked the German Chancellor for the government to intervene in the U.S. Justice Department's mortgages case," a Deutsche Bank spokesman said on Monday...Analysts at Mediobanca said that a rights issue looked inevitable. "John Cryan always said that a rights issue would only be triggered by a larger-than expected litigation charge and it appears increasingly likely that Deutsche Bank investors will be asked to post bail for Deutsche's past crimes," they said in note on Monday.

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf gets $123.6 million if he walks (USAT)
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf stands to walk from the bank with $123.6 million in severance and stock value if he retires from the bank, which is still reeling from a scandal where millions of accounts were inappropriately opened for customers. Stumpf's $123.6 million in potential retirement walking money, as calculated by pay consulting firm Equilar as of mid-September, is the sum of Stumpf's $25.2 million in retirement payments, plus a $20 million pension, deferred compensation of $4.3 million as well as the $74 million in stock he already owns. Neither Stumpf nor Wells Fargo has stated the CEO's continued employment is in doubt, but he is eligible for the bank's retirement plan.

World stocks get twitchy before Trump-Clinton showdown (Reuters)
European and Asian shares retreated on Monday with investors focused on how Donald Trump would fare in a U.S. presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, while oil prices firmed before an informal OPEC meeting. Wall Street looked set to open lower, according to index futures ESc1 1YMc1, before the first of three debates, which was due to begin at 0100 GMT/2100 ET. Half of America's likely voters will rely on the presidential debates to help them make their choice between Republican Trump and Democrat Clinton in the Nov. 8 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday. "A good performance from Mr. Trump could see market volatility increase, particularly if investors think there is a possibility that he could actually win," wrote Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in London.

Emirates airlines sued by angry lawyer for being stuck next to an obese man on a nine-hour flight (NYP)
Giorgio Destro claims his flight from Cape Town to Dubai was ruined by an overweight passenger whose body "spilled" into his seat on the Boeing 777. Destro snapped a selfie that shows him looking unhappy and apparently cramped in seat 29K next to the unidentified man who had the middle seat. The lawyer, from the Italian city of Padua, said he suffered throughout the flight last July and was told by cabin crew he could not change seats because the flight was fully booked, Italian newspaper Mattino Padova reported. "For nine hours I had to stand in the aisle, sit on seats reserved for the cabin crew when they were free and in the final phase of flight resign myself to suffer the 'spillover' of the passenger at my side," he told the newspaper in comments translated by The Local .

Wall Street is raising alarm bells over the possibility of a Trump presidency (MarketWatch)
Erik F. Nielsen, group chief economist at UniCredit Research, said his conversations with European investors fall into three “categories”: 1) Oh my God, this is bad; 2) This is not good, but the American democracy’s checks and balances are strong enough to prevent him from doing too crazy things; 3) Maybe he’ll be like Ronald Reagan and it all ends well. The economist said he’s firmly in camp No. 1, with his single-biggest concern a “complete lack of knowledge” about Trump’s policies. The fact that the candidate doesn’t have an economic or foreign-policy adviser with a known record of publications or views in the field at his disposal marks a troubling first in modern history, Nielsen said.

CBOE to buy Bats in a $3.2 billion deal (MarketWatch)
CBOE Holdings Inc. confirmed Monday that it has agreed to buy Bats Global Markets Inc. in a cash and stock deal that valued at about $3.2 billion. Under terms of the deal, which is expected to consist of 31% cash and 69% CBOE stock, CBOE will pay $32.50 for each Bats share outstanding, which is a 2.2% premium to Friday's closing price.

Most U.K. CEOs Say They Would Consider Moving After Brexit (Bloomberg)
Some 72 percent of the CEOs surveyed said they voted “Remain” in the June 23 Brexit referendum, KPMG said on Monday in an e-mailed statement. While more than two-thirds said they’re confident Britain’s economy and their own companies will continue to grow over the next year, 76 percent are mulling some form of relocation."

Man caught using mannequin torso to cheat California carpool lane (UPI)
A California police department said a motorcycle officer ticketed a man for driving in the carpool lane with an artificial passenger -- a mannequin. The Brea Police Department tweeted a photo of the female-style mannequin, which was missing its legs, wearing a hoodie with its face partially obscured in the passenger seat of a driver's pickup truck. The department said the motorcycle-riding officer pulled up to the pickup truck's window Wednesday evening when it make a sudden lane change from the carpool lane in heavy traffic on the northbound 57 Freeway. The officer had intended to warn the driver about being mare careful while changing lanes, but the officer's attention was quickly drawn to the unusual passenger. The driver admitted he had been using the dummy in carpool lanes for a while before being caught.

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Greece Teeters As Talks Fail (WSJ) In a potent sign of Greeks' rising anxiety, depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from local banks on Monday alone, according to the country's national bank—a significant escalation in capital flight from the country. Greek President Karolos Papoulias told party leaders that the situation facing Greece's lenders was very difficult and that "the strength of banks is very weak right now," according to a transcript released Tuesday. Merkel: I Want Greece To Stay In The Euro (CNBC) In an interview with CNBC's "Worldwide Exchange," Merkel said: "I want, just like Jean-Claude Juncker, that Greece stays in the euro. I think that would be good for Greece and for all of us. If Greece believes that we can find more stimulus in Europe in addition to the Memorandum (the deal stuck with the Troika), then we have to talk about that," she said, but she underlined that Greece and its euro zone partners had to be able to trust each other. What Happens When Greece's Money Runs Out (Reuters) "I'm really not sure Greece could survive for very long if external money was cut off," said Darren Williams, economist at fund manager AllianceBernstein. "But what an experience of IOUs may do rather quickly is bring home to the average Greek citizen just how much more difficult a place it is outside the bailout program and outside the euro." Moore Leads Hedge Funds Betting on JPMorgan Before Losses (Bloomberg) Hedge funds Moore Capital Management LLC and Blue Ridge Capital LLC boosted their stakes in JPMorgan Chase, while Kingdon Capital Management LLC divested, before the shares plunged because of a $2 billion trading loss. Moore, the $15 billion New York-based firm run by Louis Moore Bacon, bought 6 million shares of JPMorgan and its $297.3 million stake was its largest U.S. stock holding as of March 31, according to a filing yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. John Griffin’s New York-based Blue Ridge purchased 1.85 million shares, raising its stake in the bank to 6.14 million. The man who beached ‘Moby Iksil’ (NYP) Boaz Weinstein, a renowned CDS index arbitrageur who launched Saba in 2009, in early February recommended the index, which tracks a basket of US corporate bonds. “They are very attractive” and can be bought at a “very good discount,” said Weinstein, a former Deutsche Bank proprietary trader, speaking at the Harbor Investment Conference on Feb. 2. It appears the index was so cheap because Iksil was buying it to make a big short bet. Weinstein, whose Saba overseas $5.5 billion in assets, decided to go long and said he bought the index a few days before the conference at around 120 basis points. For a while, Weinstein’s genius trade wasn’t working out. The IG9 Index continued to sink under the weight of the Whale’s buys — hitting a low of 105 on March 21. But two weeks later, on April 3, reports surfaced about the Whale’s outsize positions and the tide started to turn. The price spiked to 130 as traders piled on. What JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon first termed a “tempest in a teapot” started to get serious. By last week, Dimon announced a $2.3 billion loss on the Whale’s trade, and word spread that Iksil’s head may roll. Meanwhile, Weinstein, who earned roughly $100 million last year, saw his position and the index continue to soar. The CDS index traded around 146 yesterday. Facebook Said to Raise Size of IPO to 421 Million Shares (Bloomberg) Facebook is boosting the number of shares for sale in its initial public offering to 421.2 million, allowing the world’s most popular social network to raise as much as $16 billion. Existing holders will offer 241.2 million shares, compared with the 157.4 million they originally planned to sell, according to a regulatory filing today. 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Because the camera swapped over to her sooner than expected, the financial-savvy viewers caught a glimpse of Ms Eisen's underwear...In spite of the hiccup, Ms Eisen was able to brush her skirt down and get back to business. She flashed a quick, knowing smile and then moved right into the news about Spain's banking system debate.

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Apple Readies Its First Bond Offering (WSJ) Apple's announcement Tuesday that it plans to borrow for the first time could be as well received as its smartphone launches. Investors are desperate to take cash off the sidelines, even on high-quality securities that will yield relatively little. Despite its huge cash stockpile, Apple plans to issue debt to help fund dividend payments and stock buybacks in part because much of its cash is overseas. Raising money in the debt market would help Apple avoid the big tax bill that would come from bringing the cash back to the U.S. "We would likely buy the deal," said Matt Brill, a portfolio manager overseeing $40 billion of investment-grade bondholdings at ING Investment Management. Twitter Said To Bolster Security After AP Hack (Bloomberg) Two-step authentication will be introduced to make it harder for outsiders to gain access to an account, said the person, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. In addition to a password, the security measure usually requires a code sent as a text message to a user’s mobile phone, or generated on a device or software. Twitter’s defense against hacks involving the theft of passwords came under scrutiny this week after a hacker sent a false post about explosions at the White House, triggering a drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index that wiped out $136 billion in market value. The attack came the same month the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said companies can use social-media sites to share market-sensitive news. It also threatened to complicate efforts by Chief Executive Officer Dick Costolo to establish the service as a viable business ahead of a possible initial public offering. Hoax Won't Deter Tweeting (WSJ) The Twitter hoax won't affect the company's disclosure plans or those of companies like Dell and Exxon Mobil, which have indicated they will use social media to communicate corporate news, according to company officials...Banks say they consider sites like Twitter an increasingly important news source and expect them to become essential outlets given the SEC's recent blessing of social media as a way for companies to disclose market-moving information. Virgin America Wants Fliers to 'Get Lucky' at 35,000 Feet (CNBC) The carrier on Monday introduced a cheeky new seat-to-seat ordering system. Without the assistance of an attendant, you can discreetly order a drink, snack or meal delivered to a fellow passenger onboard your flight. Your flirting begins on the airline's touch-screen personal entertainment system, located on the back of headrests. Call up the flight's digital seat map and send a cocktail, snack or meal to a fellow traveler onboard. 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Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elihu Berle allowed the 2011 civil enforcement action to proceed, according to the city attorney's office. The ruling was made during an April 8 hearing and a written decision was issued late on Tuesday, the city said. Traders Bet On A Sugar Rush (WSJ) Even as prices plumb nearly three-year lows, investors are betting that they will drop even more. Positions that profit when sugar prices fall hit an all-time high of 212,419 contracts—worth about $4.5 billion—on April 9. The number of these "short" contracts held by investors is up 65% from the start of the year. The wager is that Brazil, the world's biggest sugar producer, will report a record crop this year, leading to a huge global surplus. The harvest began in early April, and the weather has been ideal—dry and sunny. If growers' luck holds, prices could keep falling into late summer, when the total size of the crop begins to take shape, analysts say. 'The Rent is Too Damn High' guy is running for mayor, has an anthem to prove it (NYP, AnimalNY) McMillan has thrown his hat into the ring for the 2013 New York City mayoral race with a musicalanthem and accompanying YouTube video. "Jimmy McMillan, the political candidate whose slogan represents the one issue that all New Yorkers can agree on–that the rent is too damn high–is running for mayor," says Animal New York in the introduction to the video. "It's been two long years since I been on the scene, now I'm back in the game looking mean and lean," McMillan sings in the video. "The race may be different but the message is the same, R.I.T.D.H. is going to change the game!" "My mustache and haircut are too damn fly!"