Opening Bell: 8.24.17

Investors pour back into crisis-era credit product (FT)
Bespoke tranches remain largely the territory of credit hedge funds, since the products are not graded by the rating agencies and therefore have a limited investor base. But traders say pension funds in Canada and New Zealand are among the institutional investors who have entered the market. “In this environment, when spreads are tight and volatility is low, people are really looking for extra yield,” said Anindya Basu, an analyst at Citi.

Don’t Look Now, But Snap Shares Are Staging a Rebound (WSJ)
The stock’s trajectory matches the early period for other public tech companies like Facebook, LinkedIn Corp. and Twitter Inc., which all hit their lows within a week of their lock-up expirations, according to Jim Strugger, a derivatives strategist at MKM Partners. “The stock has conformed to internet stock biases including a 21% decline following its first quarter as a public company and a 24% decline ahead of its lock-up,” Mr. Strugger said in a Wednesday research note, where he recommended bullish options on the stock to play the bottoming out of its share price. BUT ALSO: Snap's lead IPO underwriter lowers its price target - again

How Wall Street Learned to Stop Worrying About the Debt and Love Tax Cuts (Businessweek)
The conversation on Wall Street changed after November’s election. Some of the same people who were anxious about the debt sounded delighted by Donald Trump’s plan to cut taxes for corporations and high earners, trumpeting it as a way to fuel growth. Never mind that estimates from the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation showed Trump’s campaign plan could reduce federal revenue by $3.9 trillion over 10 years. Case in point: Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein, a Fix the Debt supporter who in 2012 told CNBC he’d be for higher taxes if they helped mend the fiscal gap. After the election, Blankfein told colleagues in a companywide voicemail that Trump’s proposals, including tax reform, “will be good for growth and, therefore, will be good for our clients and for our firm.”

Is Social Capital trying to end-run banks by creating IPO 2.0? (Recode)
“The traditional technology company IPO process, which has been largely unchanged for decades, has also acted as a driving force to deter private company management teams and their pre-IPO stakeholders from pursuing IPOs. We believe management distraction, a sub-optimal price discovery mechanism and the resultant longer-term aftermarket impact have discouraged private technology companies from pursuing IPOs. This tends to be true even for businesses that are otherwise operationally ready and of appropriate size to access the public markets.” Translation: Going public is a pain in the neck. And other tech bros are the answer to those annoying banker bros!

Feline fortune: 2 cats inherit $300K from late owner (ABC13)
Troy and Tiger share a $300,000 bequest, just a small portion of author Ellen Frey-Wouter's $3-million estate that includes a large home in an exclusive section of the Bronx. Frey-Wouter was 88 and a widow with no children when she died. Two of her former home health aides now each take care of her precious pets. They submit the bills for expenses like food, grooming and vet care and are reimbursed from that trust fund.

How Fair Is Stock Trading? The SEC May Soon Decide (BBG)
There’s never been a comprehensive study on the desirability of the system in place at the three biggest U.S. stock exchanges, which pay some traders to use their platforms and charge others. That hasn’t stopped advocates on both sides of the issue from making arguments in favor or against the practice with similar near-religious zeal. Now the barroom debate may finally be decided. The SEC is considering a pilot program to determine the fairness of the “maker-taker” pricing used by NYSE, CBOE’s Bats division and Nasdaq.

The New Off-Court Play for NBA Stars Is Startup Equity (Businessweek)
Getting a piece of a tech startup is fast becoming standard in the NBA. Like wearing designer watches, being name-checked in a hip-hop lyric, and appearing on the cover of GQ, it’s a status symbol. “When I first came into the league,” says Iguodala, who’s played in the NBA since 2004, “you just had to have a certain car, or two or three or four or five, and you had certain clothes, certain shoes, to let everybody know you were a basketball player.” These days, guys also need a cut of the latest wearable gadget or media platform to show they’re not just basketball players.

Programmers say this Buddhist Bitcoin could “disrupt religion” (Lion's Roar)
At the core of the community would be its own economy, based on “Karma Coins,” which the creators say is the first real-world implementation of the concept of “Buddhist Economics.” That’s a term coined by philosopher E.F. Schumacher in the ’70s, and recently further developed by Berkeley professor Clair Brown. The currency would “reflect the true values of a Buddhist economy,” reads a post on the Lotos blog, meaning that the currency would be accumulated and spent “in ways helpful to the Noble Path.”