Opening Bell: 8.18.17
Jeff Gundlach Is Attacking the WSJ for a Story That Hasn’t Come Out Yet (BBG)
“Hard to believe. Reporter claims DoubleLine in financial distress! Says I announced no bonuses this year as a result. WTF?! With record AUM?” Gundlach posted on Aug. 5. In a separate post that day, Gundlach disputed that he’s “‘berating’ employees constantly. Constantly?! Try NEVER. Life is good at DoubleLine.” Late Wednesday, DoubleLine analyst Loren Fleckenstein forwarded emails with a Journal reporter to Bloomberg, the Financial Times, New York Times and other news outlets. In the message exchange, Fleckenstein -- citing a reporter’s after-hours call to an employee’s spouse -- called the journalist a “coward,” then later said that “‘creep’ fits better.”
What Is Trump Worth to Twitter? One Analyst Estimates $2 Billion (BBG)
That’s the conclusion of Monness Crespi Hardt & Co. analyst James Cakmak, who has a neutral rating on Twitter shares. It’s not that the president’s defection would touch off a mass exodus, lowering the number of “monetizable” daily active users, Cakmak said in an interview. Instead, losing its most prominent user would hit Twitter’s intangible value and lead to what’s known as multiple compression. “There is no better free advertising in the world than the president of the United States,” said Cakmak.
BILLIONAIRE BARRAGE: Lee Cooperman is stepping up his attack against Bill Ackman (BI)
"I'm not in the business of criticizing people, but I think this is disgraceful," he told Business Insider Thursday, his voice rising. "I think his conduct is irresponsible. There’s a way of dealing with it; he could have quietly presented his findings to the company, allow them to digest it. The company has been run as an open book." Ackman casts a "negative aspersion" on the hedge fund industry, he added. SEE ALSO: Ackman’s big ADP pitch flops on Wall Street
Wrong-Way Gas Bet Fueled Goldman’s Second-Quarter Swoon (WSJ)
Essentially, it was a bet on the timely completion of pipelines under construction to ferry a glut of gas out of the region. But one of those pipelines ran into trouble this spring: the 713-mile Rover, which would transport gas from the Marcellus to the Midwest and beyond. Its developer, Energy Transfer Partners, in February bulldozed a historic Ohio home without notifying regulators, and scrambled to finish clearing trees before the roosting season for a protected bat species. In May, federal regulators barred Energy Transfer from drilling on some segments of the route after a series of fluid spills.
Dimon’s Remarks on Trump, Charlottesville Provoke Discussion Inside J.P. Morgan (WSJ)
One of the more critical commenters wrote: “Chase has become extremely political this year and I must be honest and say that others and myself have taken offense to much of it.” He added that President Trump “condemned all hateful actors, as he should have. I have to see this conflict in my private life. I never thought I would deal with it at my workplace.”
Goldman’s sketchy case to buy (and then sell) bitcoin (FT)
As per the Goldman trading desk, discussing the possibility of trend exhaustion that could take bitcoin back to about $2,200: “Once a full five-wave sequence is in place, the market should in theory enter a corrective phase. This can last at least one-third of the time it took to complete the preceding advance and retrace at least 38.2 per cent of the entire move.” Invocation of invisible market forces seen through their effects is only a few steps removed from a horoscope. Sagittarius is rising, sell gold.
FYI: Web ad fraud looks really bad. Like, really, really bad. Bigly bad (The Register)
With ad networks, after fees and bots – which account for 30 per cent of traffic – are taken into account, $1 buys $0.07 worth of ad impressions viewed by real people. With open ad exchanges – where bots make up 70 per cent of traffic – that figure is more like $0.01. In other words, web adverts displayed via these networks just aren't being seen by actual people, just automated software scamming advertisers.
This celebrity is the most popular sex doll request (NYPost)
He told us that as many as half of the orders the company receives are for celebrity lookalikes, with Marilyn Monroe one of the most popular requests. However, the sex robot company is forced to refuse these orders – since they can’t use anyone’s likeness without their permission. Engineer Douglas said: “Marilyn comes up quite often. The caveat is we need the approval of the person or family. “If you wanted a robot that looked like Marilyn Monroe, you would have to have her estate approve it.”