Opening Bell: 10.18.16

Goldman Sachs earnings blow past expectations (CNBC)
Goldman Sachs on Tuesday reported third-quarter earnings that easily beat on the top and bottom lines, helped by strong gains in trading revenue. Shares spiked more than 1.5 percent in premarket trade. The investment bank posted quarterly earnings of $4.88 a share on revenue of $8.17 billion, up from $6.86 billion in revenue in the quarter last year. Bottom-line profit surged 58 percent. Analysts had expected Goldman Sachs to report third-quarter earnings per share of $3.82 on revenue of $7.42 billion, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Billionaire hedgie might have just called Trump a ‘scumbag’ (NYP)
David Tepper supported Republican presidential candidates before, but he has stopped short of throwing his support behind Donald Trump. The billionaire investor behind Miami-based Appaloosa Management said voters face a “difficult choice” on Nov. 8. “You have one person with questionable judgment and the other person may be demented, narcissistic and a scumbag,” Tepper said Monday in an interview on CNBC. “Not saying which one’s which. You can make your own decision on that.”

Could a President Clinton Be Tough on Wall St.? Her Staff’s Emails Hint Yes (Dealbook)
But while some of Mrs. Clinton’s detractors spread the view that she is bought and paid for by Wall Street, the WikiLeaks documents point to a slightly different dynamic. Readers may want to take a closer look not at Mrs. Clinton’s speech transcripts — in which she does say a lot of what her audience presumably wanted to hear — but to the remarkably telling back-and-forth of emails among her staff members during the campaign. While the full record suggests that Mrs. Clinton may be a pragmatist, the emails sent by her staff hint that she may be inclined to impose heavier regulations on the financial industry than is fully understood.

New York ripped for wasting money on hedge funds (CNBC)
New York state has paid hedge fund managers $1 billion in fees during the past eight years with little to show for it, officials charged on Monday. In a blistering report that criticized both the $2.9 trillion hedge fund industry and New York Comptroller's Thomas DiNapoli's office, the New York State Department of Financial Services said pension investments in hedge funds have been a giant failure, resulting in $2.8 billion in underperformance for the two state retirement systems. "The state pension system simply gave away tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in fees every year for 10 years to hedge fund managers, and received no value in return," the department said in a report.

Accused Bank Robber Duped Dad Into Giving Her A Ride To ‘Job Interview’: Police (HP)
A Florida woman accused of robbing a bank may have gotten her father involved in a crime without him knowing. Chelsea Wilson was arrested Friday morning after she allegedly robbed a TD Bank in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday afternoon. Police said Wilson’s father told them he drove her to the bank because she told him she was going to a job interview, according to the Florida Sun-Sentinel. Sometime between leaving the car and going to the “job interview,” the 24-year-old suspect covered her blonde locks with a red wig and hat and put on sunglasses, according to a complaint obtained by Local10.com. Wilson allegedly entered the bank shortly before 4 p.m. and handed the teller a handwritten note demanding money...Wilson made off with $300 and exited the bank parking lot in an SUV that FBI agents later determined was registered to her father. Wilson’s father said he thought the cash his daughter had was an advance, according to authorities.

Wall Street Dealmaker Says Professor Took Him for a Ride (NYT)
...when Mr. Hall set out last year to stage an exhibition of Golub’s art at the private rural museum he operates in this small village, he found out to his surprise that more than a third of the Golubs he had bought were forgeries, according to a lawsuit he filed last month. And the people he says hoodwinked him were two unlikely adversaries: a 68-year-old art history professor at a small college just two hours down the road and her 34-year-old son. Now, the professor and her son seem to have disappeared, and Mr. Hall is looking for the $676,250 he spent on the paintings, according to court records and the professor’s former colleagues.

A Critical Eye on Wall Street’s Secrets (Dealbook)
...the nation’s labor board has challenged some provisions in the contracts that Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund firm, requires each full-time employee to sign. The unusual action is calling into question longstanding practices and prompting some companies to re-examine their employment agreements. Prompted by a sexual harassment complaint by a former Bridgewater employee, the National Labor Relations Board filed a pending administrative action against the firm this summer saying Bridgewater “has been interfering with, restraining and coercing” employees from exercising their rights. The former Bridgewater employee, Christopher Tarui, claimed that he was the victim of sexual harassment by a male supervisor and that the hedge fund had retaliated against him when he complained.

Growth in low-fee products helps boost BlackRock profits (Reuters)
Despite what CEO Larry Fink conceded was a difficult market for investors, who moved to generally lower-fee bond investments and index funds, BlackRock's "long-term" products absorbed $55.1 billion in cash, up from $35 billion a year earlier. The company's assets under management grew to over $5 trillion. That helped net income rise 3.8 percent to $875 million, or $5.26 per share, in the third quarter ended Sept. 30 from $843 million, or $5.00 per share, a year earlier.

Man locks keys in house, gets stuck in chimney for four hours (UPI)
Firefighters in Arizona shared photos from the rescue of a 26-year-old man who was trapped for four hours in his own chimney. The Tucson Fire Department said in a Facebook post crews responded to a University area home Sunday morning after a neighbor reported hearing a man shouting for help. Firefighters found the man's feet were touching the floor of his house, but his body was wedged in the fireplace due to its decreased diameter toward the bottom.