Opening Bell: 4.12.17

Fed officials haven't stopped holding private meetings even after a criminal probe into leaks (BI)
Federal Reserve officials give speeches all the time. What makes this one notable is that it was closed to the public, Fischer's prepared comments have not been made available, and that the speech took place at all was not widely known. And, it came just days before another Fed official — Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker abruptly resigned after admitting that he played a role in a 2012 leak of market-sensitive details of the central bank's internal deliberation.

Why the Fed Might Have to ‘Live’ With a Large Balance Sheet (BBG)
“Reserves are far from being ‘excess’ -- they are needed and are being traded actively,” he concludes. Government “measures to avoid the debt ceiling have put $400 billion in reserves back into the financial system, which drove the collapse of cross-currency bases. What this tells us is that the Fed has only limited room to shrink its balance sheet.”

Upbeat CEOs Often Turn Around and Sell, Study Finds (WSJ)
Although it is possible that executives consciously manipulate the tone of the calls to affect share prices, they’re more likely simply acting rationally, say the authors: Seeing prices move after the call, CEOs may merely be capitalizing on that perceived mispricing, selling after a run-up and buying after a drop.

Ex-Deutsche MD says young people can do better than banking (EFC)
Like others who’ve been through banks’ junior ranks, Yoshida says the work in banking is fundamentally tedious: “The learning curve isn’t nearly as steep as you expect it to be. You get taught Excel and you learn how to be a grunt and survive it and you learn how to get yourself noticed by senior management, but you can learn all this and more in other places too.”

A New, More Rigorous Study Confirms: The More You Use Facebook, the Worse You Feel (HBR)
Overall, our results showed that, while real-world social networks were positively associated with overall well-being, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with overall well-being. These results were particularly strong for mental health; most measures of Facebook use in one year predicted a decrease in mental health in a later year. We found consistently that both liking others’ content and clicking links significantly predicted a subsequent reduction in self-reported physical health, mental health, and life satisfaction.

People Love Talking About Bitcoin More Than Using It (WSJ)
Bitcoin faces an existential question—what exactly is it for? Some of the early adopters pushed for it to be a viable alternative to government-backed currencies such as dollars, yen or euros. Others see a digital version of gold or a payment system to rival Visa Inc. or MasterCard Inc. Proponents envisioned bitcoin as a way for poorer countries and citizens to bypass banks. So far, it hasn’t fulfilled any of those goals.

ValueAct to Return $1.25 Billion on Concerns About Frothy Market (BBG)
San Francisco-based ValueAct, which manages more than $16 billion, explained its decision to return capital in a letter last week to investors that was viewed by Bloomberg News. It said that current prices on companies the firm follows “can only be justified by assuming cyclically high corporate margins will persist, a certainty of lower corporate taxes and a risk-free rate that stays near all time lows.”

That Fingerprint Sensor on Your Phone Is Not as Safe as You Think (NYT)
New findings published Monday by researchers at New York University and Michigan State University suggest that smartphones can easily be fooled by fake fingerprints digitally composed of many common features found in human prints. In computer simulations, the researchers from the universities were able to develop a set of artificial “MasterPrints” that could match real prints similar to those used by phones as much as 65 percent of the time.

Is Martin Shkreli The Ultimate Wall Street Whistleblower? (New Yorker)
It was almost 9 p.m. when Shkreli drained his second glass of beer. He suddenly looked alert, remembering that he had received a jury-duty summons. He looked at his phone and said, “Shit, I might have missed it. What day is it?”