Opening Bell: 4.13.17
David Einhorn Ratchets Up Pressure on GM (WSJ)
“GM is ignoring the significant value unlocked by our plan, and has concocted a ratings issue by presenting a one-sided and flawed analysis to the rating agencies,” said a statement from Vinit Sethi, partner and director of research at Greenlight. Mr. Sethi is being put forth as one of three board candidates.
Trump Reversals Hint at Wall Street Wing’s Sway in White House (NYT)
The shifts confounded many of Mr. Trump’s supporters and suggested that the moderate financiers he brought from Wall Street are eclipsing the White House populist wing led by Stephen K. Bannon, the political strategist who is increasingly being sidelined by the president.
Buyout Firms Are Magically -- and Legally-- Pumping Up Returns (BBG)
Use has gradually snowballed as firms seek to one-up rivals that employ the lines, said Auerbach of Cambridge Associates. “We’re seeing an arms race.” The impact on results can be even more eye-popping in the rare event when a company is bought and flipped without using any fund money. The resulting IRR is, in mathematical terms, infinite.
Orpington Markets (Polemic's Pains)
Why are the markets at Orpington? Because when I look out from this packed train I see Apache country. I feel as though I am watching a movie through the window rather than an immediate reality I am actually involved in. I see visions of potential war, I see visions of EU upset. It’s beyond visions of a 1950’s Cowboy flick, it’s more an animated Dante’s inferno. But I'm behind the glass and it's warm in this train and there are lots of people around me who are also on the train and they don’t seem worried, so I’ll just stay here shall I? This is the problem with buying indices blindly. You are behind a glass wall in a carriage of self-reference and whilst you may see worries outside, as long as your peer group are with you then that reality appears far, far away.
Tesla's Musk tells disgruntled shareholders: Buy Ford (Reuters)
"This investor group should buy Ford stock," Musk posted on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. "Their governance is amazing..." Musk then said on Twitter that he would follow up soon on an earlier promise to appoint more independent directors, "but this (investor) group has nothing to do with it."
A Barclays exec who went to prison for LIBOR-rigging breaks his silence: 'Traders have been served up as fall guys to protect these more powerful senior bankers' (BI)
"We work so hard for these [jobs] and we go to school and work hard to get the degrees, we compete hard, and it's hard to get into these trading positions. The last thing you're going to do is risk your career for a small amount of money. It doesn't add up. People just look at one small aspect of this case and not look at the whole picture."
A top trader at Credit Suisse just quit to take a role at JPMorgan (BI)
Mallgrave was at Credit Suisse for a little over a year, having quit his role at Goldman Sachs in late 2015 to join the Swiss bank. A Harvard graduate, Mallgrave was selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1988 NHL draft.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Data Mining (Cliff Asness)
Rob and Research Affiliates publicly claim to believe in, and run investment products based on, factors that largely overlap with AQR. Now, for competitive reasons I wish they’d stop, but it’s a free country.[...]Check out how his firm describes one of its products. What exactly does he claim we believe in because of data mining that isn’t in his list here? I mean, if I and AQR are data miners, then double data-mining on you Rob!15 That he’d accuse us of being “insufficiently skeptical” about the dangers of data mining isn’t just at odds with our long history of the exact opposite, but bat**** crazy when it’s mostly the stuff he believes in too. I guess he’s hoping nobody noticed. I noticed.
Why I won’t date hot women anymore (NYP)
“Beautiful women who get a fair amount of attention get full of themselves,” private equity executive Dan Rochkind says. “Eventually, I was dreading getting dinner with them because they couldn’t carry a conversation.” According to new research, Rochkind’s ideas about sexy bikini babes are correct.
8-year-old boy drives 4-year-old sister to get cheeseburger: Police (Fox8 Cleveland)
Once at the McDonald’s on Market Street, a family friend who happened to be eating at the restaurant, notified the children’s grandparents. The children did get to eat their cheeseburgers before police arrived. Officer Koehler arrived at McDonald’s and talked to the little boy, who told him he had learned to drive by watching YouTube videos.