Opening Bell: 4.6.17

‘Crowdsourced’ Quantopian dives into algorithms (FT)
Until this week, Quantopian had merely allocated modest amounts of its own money to a handful of trading algorithms to test their resilience and performance. But in the second quarter of this year, Quantopian expects to begin allocating more capital to strategies on its platform via a pooled investment vehicle, in addition to Steven A. Cohen’s money.

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Owes About $25 Million to Blood-Testing Startup (WSJ)
The $25 million Ms. Holmes owes Theranos comes from an agreement between her and the company that allowed her to exercise options to buy more stock without having to pay upfront. Instead, she agreed to pay the company for the shares later, one of the people said. Ms. Holmes didn’t get any company cash from the arrangement, the person said.

Two former Barclays traders cleared in Libor retrial (FT)
Mr Contogoulas, a trader on Barclays’ swaps desk in London, sent messages about Libor submissions to Peter Johnson, a Libor submittor at Barclays who was convicted last year, the court heard. Mr Contogoulas told him: “Remember when I retire and write a book about this business your name will be written in golden letters and you’ll have an open invitation to my bar in the Greek islands . . . hee, hee.” “I’d prefer this not to be in any books . . .” Johnson replied.

Cohn Backs Wall Street Split of Lending, Investment Banks (BBG)
The ex-Goldman Sachs executive who is now advising President Donald Trump said he generally favors banking going back to how it was when firms like Goldman focused on trading and underwriting securities, and companies such as Citigroup Inc. primarily issued loans, according to the people, who heard his comments.

Jeff Bezos Says He Is Selling $1 Billion a Year in Amazon Stock to Finance Race to Space (NYT)
“If we can make access to space low-cost, then entrepreneurs will be unleashed,” he said. “You will see creativity, you will see dynamism, you will see the same thing in space that I’ve witnessed on the internet in the last 20 years.”

Traders Bet the Fed Will Slow Rate Hikes to Shrink Balance Sheet (BBG)
“If we start to normalize the balance sheet, that’s a substitute for short-term rate hikes,” and “we might actually decide at the same time to take a little pause in terms of raising short-term interest rates,” New York Fed President William Dudley said in an interview last week. He added that he isn’t worried about a “violent” market reaction to balance-sheet reductions “because it is already factored in.”

How the music industry came back to life (FT)
The labels made mistakes — suing individuals for illegal downloading and making themselves look like bullies was one of the worst. But they kept their faith that recorded music was valuable and worth paying for, unlike publishers that unwisely switched to giving away news for free and relying on advertising.

ETFs Are the New Bond Kings (BBG)
“There are some people who aren’t that bright and would rather fail unconventionally than muddle along conventionally,” Shantz says. “I guess I’m one of those.”

It’s now illegal in Russia to share an image of Putin as a possibly gay clown (SCMP)
Russian news outlets are having trouble reporting exactly which image of the Internet’s many Putin-gay-clown memes is now illegal to share. Because it’s been banned. But the picture was described last week on the Russian government’s list of things that constitute “extremism.”