Opening Bell: 3.8.17

Wall Street CEO’s most notorious critic not ready to shut up (NYP)
Mayo believes that there’s still a place for critical Wall Street analysis. “There’s a lot of dead weight out there,” he said. “Cut through the BS.“ He likened his perfectionist streak to that of Paul Cézanne, a 19th-century French painter who created his masterpieces late in life, as opposed to Pablo Picasso, whose early work is prized for its genius. “I’m an artist! I’m Cézanne!” he said over his fish lunch. Where his next “studio” will be is anyone’s guess.

Investors Who Missed Bitcoin Rally Go for Dash, Ether, Monero (BBG)
With bitcoin on a tear, Mira Kwon decided there’s more money to be made elsewhere. A little over a month ago, the University of Maryland economics graduate began pouring more than $2,000 into a different crypto-currency called dash. “Bitcoin is expensive,” Kwon, a mother, investor, Korean interpreter and U.S. Army veteran, said in a telephone interview. “I think dash has a bigger growth rate.”

A Radical About-Face for Battle-Scarred Barclays: Take More Risk (WSJ)
Barclays PLC’s new corporate-and-investment-banking chief, Tim Throsby, recently toured his unit spreading a message that staff haven’t heard for years: Don’t be afraid to take more risk. Since his arrival in January, Mr. Throsby has told staff at meetings to reawaken their “commercial instincts” and use more of the bank’s risk appetite, these people say.

Target the spread (John Cochrane)
Perhaps the Fed should abandon manipulating the level of short-term rates all together, and simply target the spread directly. If it wants 2% inflation, offer to exchange, say, one-year treasury bonds in return for one-year indexed treasuries at a 2% premium, in any quantity you wish. Bring in a 1% indexed treasury, and you get a 3% non-indexed treasury, no matter what the going market rate or non-indexed treasuries. And leave the interest rate alone entirely.

The Expert’s Guide to Crying at Work (BBG)
In one survey of 13,000 people, 10 percent of respondents reported holing up in an office bathroom stall to let it all out. Another survey of 700 people found that 41 percent of female respondents and 9 percent of male respondents admitted to crying at work. I’ve done it at my desk in an open office space. And while reporting this story, many of my colleagues, men and women alike, have copped to getting emotional at work, too.

Freakish Peace Envelopes U.S. Bull Market as Year Eight Rolls By (BBG)
To Michael Shaoul, chief executive officer of Marketfield Asset Management, neither P/E nor the VIX is useful in determining a market top on its own -- and it makes no more sense to look at a combination of the two. “This idea can be summed up by the old term ‘two wrongs don’t make a right,”’ Shaoul said. “We can complain that valuations are no longer appealing and that the steady staircase-like move is unnerving, but we cannot say that these factors in themselves mean the end is nigh.”

'It's like kumbaya:' Trump's genial private meetings with CEOs jar with public attacks (Reuters)
"He said one thing for the cameras and the door shuts and then it's like kumbaya," said one person who was briefed on a meeting between Trump and a group of CEOs. "He likes to be seen as engaging and buddy buddy with other big important business leaders," said this person.

Lawmaker shocked by 'insane' boozing at Rhode Island capitol (AP)
A new state lawmaker said she's surprised by the "insane amount of drinking" that goes on in the State House. Providence Democratic Rep. Moira Walsh told WPRO-AM on Tuesday that lawmakers have "file cabinets full of booze." She described how they recently took shots on the floor of the House of Representatives to celebrate Dominican Republic Independence Day.