Opening Bell: 9.18.17

Wall Street’s Trillion-Dollar Monopoly Has Repo Traders on Edge (BBG)
The problem isn’t so much that BNY Mellon might abuse its position in what’s become a highly regulated, utility-like part of the repo market. After all, JPMorgan threw in the towel after post-crisis rules made the business costly and onerous. Instead, traders are worried that relying on a single bank for all clearing and settlement -- which involves checking every transaction is valid, transferring money from one account to another and safeguarding collateral backing each contract -- could mean big trouble if something goes wrong.

Female hedge funds outperform those run by men (FT)
The HFRX Women index, which pulls together the performance of female hedge fund managers, has returned 9.95 per cent for the first seven months of the year. This compares with 4.81 per cent for the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite index, a broader gauge of hedge funds. The strong performance comes despite women being under-represented across the hedge fund and wider asset management industry. It also tallies with previous data that show that hedge funds run by women outperform those run by men over five years.

SAC trader accused of insider trading claims Bharara got it wrong (NYP)
Ex-SAC trader Richard Lee said he was preparing for his October sentencing when he received a copy of an instant message exchange he had with Cohen in 2009 which, he believes, throws the government’s entire case against him into question. [...] The IM, which Lee only received ahead of his sentencing, allegedly shows that he talked with Cohen about the Yahoo/Microsoft merger at 9:13 am on July 10, 2009 — roughly two hours before the feds say he received material, non-public information about the tech deal from a Wall Street analyst.

Global debt may be understated by $13 trillion: BIS (Reuters)
The $13 trillion unaccounted-for exposure exceeds the on-balance-sheet debt of $10.7 trillion that data shows was owed by firms and governments outside the United States at end-March. The fact these FX derivatives do not appear on financial and non-financial institutions’ balance sheets under current accounting rules means little is known about where the debt lies.

Chase Bank Buys Bitcoin Even as Jamie Dimon Rejects It (CoinTelegraph)
Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon recently rejected Bitcoin as a ‘fraud,” likely causing additional sell offs after the news of the Chinese exchange ban was released. The financial guru commented that Bitcoin was in a bubble not unlike the famous Tulip bubble during the 17th century. However, in a somewhat surprising move, JP Morgan purchased a large block of Bitcoins just after the CEO’s harsh criticisms. SEE ALSO: Biting Back on Bitcoin, Central Banks Chew Over Introducing Cryptocurrencies

Obama Goes From White House to Wall Street in Less Than One Year (BBG)
Hillary Clinton says she made a mistake when she gave speeches on Wall Street after leaving government. Her old boss doesn’t seem to share her concern. Last month, Barack Obama spoke in New York to clients of Northern Trust for about $400,000, a person familiar with his appearance said. Last week, he reminisced about the White House for Carlyle Group, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, according to two people who were there. Next week, he’ll give a keynote speech at investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald's health-care conference.

Shiller: Mass Psychology Supports the Pricey Stock Market (NYT)
Mass psychology appears to be in a different, calmer place. Investors do not seem to have the concern they had in 1929 or 2000 that other investors might suddenly sell their holdings and get out of the stock market.

Investing Hot Shots Can't Time, Either (Gadfly)
Investors who can stick to a measured market-timing strategy may be rewarded. But the next time you hear a billionaire investor calling the next correction, remember that they most likely didn’t get rich by timing the market.

Why Listen to Earnings Calls When Artificial Intelligence Can Do It Better? (II)
After an earnings call, Prattle provides a score, as well as the sentiment of every speaker. Schnidman expects its methodology to be highly accurate based on its experience distilling language used by central banks into quantitative sentiment data that projects policy outcomes. So far Prattle has predicted outcomes from the nuanced language of central bankers with 98 percent accuracy in the year and a half it has offered the service.

Anthony Scaramucci Is Thinking About Running For President! (BuzzFeed)
On Sunday, Scaramucci reaffirmed that he was "back in business." In the correspondence, however, Scaramucci says he is working to expand his media profile to lay the groundwork for a future run for office. For now, Scaramucci has generated some attention on Twitter with "The Scaramucci Post," which appears to be some sort of forthcoming new media project.

How Civilization Started (The New Yorker)
For thousands of years, the agricultural revolution was, for most of the people living through it, a disaster. The fossil record shows that life for agriculturalists was harder than it had been for hunter-gatherers. Their bones show evidence of dietary stress: they were shorter, they were sicker, their mortality rates were higher. Living in close proximity to domesticated animals led to diseases that crossed the species barrier, wreaking havoc in the densely settled communities. Scott calls them not towns but “late-Neolithic multispecies resettlement camps.” Who would choose to live in one of those? Jared Diamond called the Neolithic Revolution “the worst mistake in human history.” The startling thing about this claim is that, among historians of the era, it isn’t very controversial.

Man gets body part stuck in a weight at the gym (Fox32)
Firefighters in Worms, Germany were called in to help free a man who got his body part stuck in the hole of a 5.5 pound weight at a gym. With the help of a grinder and a hydraulic saw, they were able to break the weight into 5 parts, freeing the man's penis. On Friday, the fire department released a photo on Facebook, showing the dumbbell disc broken into 5 pieces after the 3-hour ordeal. The message in their Facebook post was clear: "Bitte solche Aktionen nicht nachmachen!" Translation: "Please do not imitate such actions!"