Opening Bell: 3.24.17

‘Bro, I’m Going Rogue’: The Wall Street Informant Who Double-Crossed the FBI (BBG)
Working undercover made him feel like an action hero. It fed into his love of intrigue, according to his ex-wife, Karen Barker-Gentile. “He did actually assume a new personality in which he imagined himself to be an FBI agent,” she says. He began calling his operation Wall Street Underground and developed a signature move, giving each target a hug at their last meeting before the FBI moved in.

Theranos Offers Shares for Promise Not to Sue (WSJ)
Theranos reached a separate agreement to buy back the shares purchased in early 2015 by Rupert Murdoch for about $125 million. Under the terms of that deal, Theranos agreed to pay Mr. Murdoch a nominal amount equal to a tiny fraction of the original purchase price, the people said. One person familiar with the matter said the amount was just $1.

Finance Is No Longer the Enemy as Bankers Come in From the Cold (BBG)
Even the French, who so distrust the profit motive they practice what economist Thomas Piketty calls “capitalism without capitalists,” are coming around. Back when Francois Hollande was running for president in 2012, the Socialist leader described the financial industry as his “true adversary.” By contrast, Macron, a former Economy Minister under Hollande, has owned his tenure at Rothschild & Co., a 200-year-old investment house.

The Risk Of A Crash Has Never Been Higher? (Pension Partners)
The key question is not whether perceived tail risk is high (it appears to be), but whether high perceived tail risk tends to translate into high actual tail risk. To answer that question we need to go to the data. The SKEW Index dates back to January 1990. If we look at the top 5% of values historically (above 131), what does SKEW tell us about forward returns? In a word: nothing. On average, the forward S&P 500 returns are not materially different from any random SKEW value.

What Does President Donald Trump Mean for the US Economy? (Brad DeLong)
It could take the 'Berlusconi form', in which the government builds some infrastructure, but much less than you'd think because corruption gets into the process from the very beginning. And then at the end, the infrastructure is handed over to private friends who are then able to charge monopoly prices for what ought to be public services. This looks like what we are going to get.

China Huishan Dairy shares plunge 90% in sudden sell-off (FT)
Now that’s what you call a share price mooove. Shares in China Huishan Dairy Holdings, a company that was targeted last year by activist hedge fund Muddy Waters, have taken a sudden plunge of more than 90 per cent, making for one of the biggest-ever falls on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Bill Ackman’s new romance complicates ‘big-money’ divorce (PageSix)
To make matters more tense, Ackman’s estranged wife is entitled to claim up to half of his fortune at the time of separation. Ackman was worth an estimated $1.65 billion last year. But on March 13, he and investors of his firm Pershing Square Capital Management swallowed a nearly $4 billion loss on drug company Valeant. We’re told the loss was already accounted for before his divorce.

Trumpflation story is fake news when explaining market moves (FT)
Take a closer look, however, and you will discover reports of “Trumpflation” are fake news. The change in sentiment is driven more by a sharply reduced fear of deflation than by heightened concerns about inflation. Less downside risk, not greater upside potential, better explains the market moves in the past few months.

Woman finds teeth in her tacos (NYP)
“When you order Barbacoa tacos but get teeth instead,” customer Courtney Aguilar wrote on Sunday. The meal then only got weirder when Aguilar informed the waitress, who was apparently unfazed by the tacos’ unconventional topping. “I asked the server if this was teeth?” she wrote. “She said ‘baby teeth.'”