Opening Bell: 5.3.17

Super-rich private equity stars rue 'lousy' reputation, say they are misunderstood (Reuters)
"The idea that you can do all that and have great success and be perceived at best in a marginal way in terms of contribution to society, you've got to really wonder who’s doing the PR," Schwarzman said during a panel discussion at the Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton hotel.

Ask a “Bond Vigilante”: Is the US budget really going to cause trouble? (FT Alphaville)
“People have been talking about the return of the bond vigilantes for 20 years now. In that time, we’ve seen zero, negative, and falling term premia, and negative bond yields as well. If any country generates some inflation, bond yields will react to that in a rational way. That’s all it is, really, rather than any concerted [effort from markets].”

U.S. SEC approves request to list quadruple-leveraged ETFs (Reuters)
"We're excited about it," said Sam Masucci, chief executive officer at Exchange Traded Managers Group LLC, which is distributing the product, though he said the product is "not going to be for everybody....But for those people that are looking for the leveraged exposure to the S&P and they're not looking to do it by way of a futures product here you have a publicly listed security."

I Never Knew How Screwed Up Global Banking Was Until I Started My Own Bank (ValueWalk)
As technology improved, banks continually patched and updated their systems. But they eventually ran into limitations in terms of how much they could modernize the software. In the software industry, developers recognize this limitation. That’s why from time to time they stop supporting obsolete versions of their applications and reengineer new versions with the latest technology. But that didn’t happen across most of the banking sector. Instead, banks kept patching and upgrading outdated software. Simply put, the most important functions in the banking system are powered by decades-old technology.

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square makes modest debut on LSE (FT)
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Holdings has made a modest debut on the London Stock Exchange on Tuesday, closing on the lows of the day with less than £1m worth of shares changing hands, as the investor talked up the attractions of his £3.6bn closed-end fund.

Tim Cook: Everyone talking about next iPhone hurting sales (NYP)
On a conference call with analysts, Cook griped that an endless barrage of leaks about the next iPhone — branded alternately by Apple watchers as the “iPhone 8” or the “iPhone X” — appear to have curbed sales of the current iPhone 7. “We are seeing a pause in purchases of the iPhone due to earlier and much more frequent reports about future iPhones,” he said.

Tesla is most painful stock for short sellers in 2017 (Reuters)
Overall this year, short sellers betting against Tesla have lost $3.7 billion, far more than has been lost shorting any other U.S. stock, according to S3. The next three most painful stocks for short sellers this year have been Apple, Amazon.com and Netflix. Short sellers have lost $1.5 billion betting against Apple, $1.1 billion betting against Amazon.com and $776 million on Netflix.

Honoring a Fellow Fan, One Ballpark Bathroom at a Time (NYT)
The New York Mets were leading the Philadelphia Phillies, 2-1, after two innings when Tom McDonald stood up from his upper-deck seat at Citi Field. Nature was calling, and so was his obligation to his childhood friend and fellow Mets fan Roy Riegel, whose death nine years ago left Mr. McDonald, 56, vowing to honor their baseball bonds in an unconventional way: by disposing of Mr. Riegel’s ashes in ballparks across the country