Opening Bell 8.3.17

Wall Street, Climbing Sharply, Skips Washington’s ‘Soap Opera’ [NYT]
The disconnect was evident Wednesday, as the Dow Jones industrial average passed the 22,000 mark, a new high. At the same time, blue chips like Apple, Caterpillar and U.S. Steel have all reported strong earnings in recent weeks that surpassed analysts’ forecasts.
“None of the soap opera in Washington matters,” said Frank Sullivan, chief executive of RPM International, a Cleveland-based maker of specialty coatings and sealants like Rust-Oleum. “Nobody in business cares about who talked to who in Russia.”

Bank of England holds rates steady, forecasts two hikes over next three years [CNBC]
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted by a majority of 6-2 to keep rates at record low levels in August.
Meantime, the U.K.'s central bank maintained stock levels of government bonds and corporate bonds at £435 billion and £10 billion respectively.
The MPC also said it forecast two interest rate hikes over the next three years, one more than it had estimated previously. Governor Mark Carney and his fellow rate-setters said the first rate hike would likely take place in the third quarter of 2018.

Model 3 demand, higher revenue propel Tesla shares higher [Reuters]
Tesla Inc reported quarterly revenue that doubled on Wednesday and a loss that was the electric car maker's largest ever, but its shares rose after revealing more than 1,800 daily reservations for the Model 3 and predicting increased Model S deliveries in the second half of 2017.
Shares rose as high as 8 percent to $351.67 in late trade.

Is Gary Cohn a Good Pick to Head the Fed? [BusinessWeek]
Cohn, 56, would be like a bulldog guiding an institution of eggheads, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who’ve either worked with him or worked at the Fed. His fierce personality, forged over years on Goldman’s trading floors, could clash with a culture built on slow, contemplative collaboration. “Gary is definitely an instinctual thinker,” says Michael Dubno, who was the chief technology officer at Goldman before he left in 2005. He saw Cohn as aggressive and blunt, someone who would make threats and not veil them. “Whether he can go really deep on things or not,” he says, “I don’t know.”

Steven Cohen’s Point72 faces regulatory rebuff in UK [FT]
Point72, which manages about $11bn of Mr Cohen’s personal fortune, has been told in recent months that it would not receive regulatory approval in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority, said people with knowledge of the situation.
One of the people added that it was not clear what Point72 was seeking approval for, but regulatory lawyers said the main reason family offices seek FCA authorisation is to accept and manage other investors’ money.
Family offices are allowed to trade in the UK without the FCA’s blessing, but must be approved to oversee anyone else’s money. According to regulatory lawyers, family offices may also need FCA approval in order to implement certain changes to the way a fund is structured.

‘London Whale’ Has a New Target: J.P. Morgan’s Top Brass [WSJ]
Four years ago, Bruno Iksil, a former J.P. Morgan trader in London, agreed to testify against ex-coworkers Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout for their roles in a 2012 trading debacle that cost the bank more than $6 billion. But over the past year, Mr. Iksil changed his story.
“I mostly inferred that Dimon and his close lieutenants were responsible much, much more than my two colleagues could ever be,” Mr. Iksil said in an email, his first comments since prosecutors requested the case be dropped on July 21.

Cantor Fitzgerald CEO buys iconic triplex at $81M discount [PageSix]
The massive triplex penthouse at the Pierre hotel — once the city’s most expensive listing, asking $125 million — has been purchased by Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick for a stunning discount at $44 million, Page Six can exclusively reveal.
The respected Wall Street veteran, who rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald after losing his brother and 658 of his colleagues on 9/11, and his wife Allison have bought the iconic property from Barbara Zweig, the widow of financier Martin Zweig, who listed it after her husband’s death in 2013.

Chick-fil-A patrons trash restaurant over cold nuggets [FoxNews]
Soon afterward, a pair of women began beating on the locked door of the restaurant, and even broke one of the door handles before entering through another set of doors, Music claimed. The two women then proceed to start “yelling and arguing” with the workers, who were already on the phone with police.
Music didn’t say specifically what the two women were angry about, but in the post’s accompanying footage, they can be heard trying to obtain a refund on behalf of their brother, saying he was served cold nuggets. (WARNING: Some of the following footage contains explicit language.)