Opening Bell: 3.9.17

Anthony Scaramucci Loses White House Communications Post (WSJ)
Mr. Scaramucci is being considered for a different role, according to a person familiar with the situation, though it is unclear what kind of position he would be offered and whether he would take it. In January, Mr. Scaramucci was offered an ambassadorship, though a person familiar with the matter said it was a vague offer and not for a specific country.

To Reduce Trade Deficit, White House Wants Partners to Buy American (WSJ)
“Any country we have a significant trade deficit with needs to work with us on a product-by-product and sector-by-sector level to reduce that deficit over a specified period of time,” Peter Navarro, director of the White House’s National Trade Council, said. “That can be achieved, if they buy more of our products than they now are buying from the rest of the world, whether it’s chemicals or corn or whether, from a national security perspective, it’s submarines or aircraft.”

Short-sellers slow their bets against Snapchat owner (FT)
Ihor Dusaniwsky, head of research at S3 Partners, attributed the decline in cost, which lowers the hurdle for making a profit on a short sale, to more shares becoming available. “Snap was a real big retail name — even my son bought stock,” Mr Dusaniwsky said referring to his 27-year-old son who is a combat medic stationed in Europe. “These shares are sitting in retail accounts and the brokers woke up this morning and found all the stock they didn’t know they had.”

The Downfall of the Popular IPO (A Wealth Of Common Sense)
Lots of people have been saying we’re in a technology bubble for a number of years now. While this IPO performance certainly doesn’t look like a bubble, if there was a bubble, the bursting of it has been outsourced from the private owners of these companies to the public owners.

Meet the Hundreds of Officials Trump Has Quietly Installed Across the Government (ProPublica)
A Trump campaign aide who argues that Democrats committed “ethnic cleansing” in a plot to “liquidate” the white working class. A former reality show contestant whose study of societal collapse inspired him to invent a bow-and-arrow-cum-survivalist multi-tool. An “evangelist” and lobbyist for Palantir, the Silicon Valley company with close ties to intelligence agencies. And a New Hampshire Trump supporter who has only recently graduated from high school. These are just some of the people Trump has hired for positions across the federal government.

Valuation Shell Game: Silicon Valley’s Dirty Secret (NYT)
Valuing private companies is often a difficult and imprecise exercise, even though the experts can come up with a number that feels real. “The thought that ANYONE can be precise about the value of a private company to the second decimal place is preposterous,” Bill Gurley, general partner at venture capital firm Benchmark, said. “No one that is properly trained in finance should have ANY confidence in such an exercise. As such it’s become a bureaucratic waste of time.”

Corporate Insiders Haven’t Been This Uninterested in Buying Stocks Since Ronald Reagan Was President (WSJ)
Insider buyers have been scant. There were a total of 279 insider buyers in January, the lowest in records of publicly traded companies that are required to disclose going back to 1988.

Show Me The Money (Bill Gross)
"And so," my oldest son, Jeff, said as he stroked his beardless chin like a scientist just discovering the mystery of black holes. "That sounds like a good thing. The problem I'll bet comes when there are too many pizza stores (think subprime mortgages) and the interest on all of the loans couldn't be paid and everyone wants the dollar back that they think is theirs. Sounds like 2008 to me – something like Lehman Brothers." "Yep," I said, as I got up to get a Coke from the refrigerator. "Something like Lehman Brothers."

A Single Bitcoin Transaction Takes Thousands of Times More Energy Than a Credit Card Swipe (Vice)
A new index has recently modeled potential energy costs per transaction as high as 94 kWh, or enough electricity to power 3.17 households for a day. To put it another way, that's almost enough energy to fully charge the battery of a Tesla Model S P100D, the world's quickest production car, and drive it over 300 miles.

Women don't want chips when they see a good-looking man, say scientists (Telegraph)
Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark published their findings in the research Journal Food Quality and Preference, and said women prefer low-calorie foods when in front of someone they are attracted to. People have taken to social media to rubbish the claims, saying they fancy chips all the time and that they would rather have both fast food and the attentions of a good-looking fellow.