Opening Bell: 12.6.17
JPMorgan, Bank of America Say Trading Revenue to Fall in Fourth Quarter (WSJ)
Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said at a banking conference in New York on Tuesday that trading revenue is likely to fall about 15% in the fourth quarter compared with the year-earlier period. At the conference, JPMorgan finance chief Marianne Lake also said trading revenue is expected to fall 15% in the quarter. Ms. Lake said there are “not many catalysts,” and volatility remains “low across the spectrum.”
'Holy crap': Experts find tax plan riddled with glitches (Politico)
Other issues arise from the fact that lawmakers are mostly skipping the custom of having a transitional period between current tax rules and the new ones, in order to give the public time to adjust to the changes. The House bill also includes a whole new way of taxing multinational corporations — aside from the one-time tax — that lawmakers have hardly debated, and which experts are still trying to understand. “It’s crazy,” said one Republican lobbyist. “I don’t think anyone could explain it, let alone comply with it” by Jan. 1.
Where Have the Buybacks Gone? A Puzzle With Clues for Tax Reform (BBG)
Says Steven Ricchiuto, Mizuho Securities chief U.S. economist: “The reason why you haven’t had that much in terms of share buybacks is because the equity market has done so well. The equity market has done better because of the upticks that we’ve had in the economy in the last two quarters and that’s taken some of the pressure off of them to have to do the share buybacks.”
Biotech hedge fund titan Sam Isaly harassed, demeaned women for years, former employees say (StatNews)
Five people who once worked at investing giant OrbiMed Advisors said Sam Isaly, the firm’s 72-year-old managing partner, kept a set of breast implants on his desk, palpating them like stress balls during idle conversation. He wantonly demeaned and verbally abused female employees, they said. One woman said on several occasions, she glimpsed hardcore pornography playing on the large screens that dominated the trading room floor of the $15 billion fund.
How UBS Tore Down a Car — and Rebuilt Its Research Practice (II)
“It was about trying to understand the implications of the Tesla models,” explains Barry Hurewitz, global chief operating officer of UBS Group Research. “It turned out it was much cheaper to produce the cars than our analysts had thought going into it.” In fact, $4,600 cheaper — a finding that led the UBS analysts to raise their estimation of the profitability of electric vehicles, as well as to re-examine the effects of the growing market on traditional auto-parts suppliers.
Bitcoin could cost us our clean-energy future (Grist)
Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the U.S. for one day. And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers. The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge — an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year.
Weinstein’s Complicity Machine (NYT)
Mr. Carr, a New York Times columnist who died in 2015, heard about Ms. McGowan’s assault allegation and other accusations while reporting a profile for New York magazine in 2001, his editors said. Several weeks before the article was published, Kroll, a private investigative agency that did work for Mr. Weinstein, provided him with some details of Mr. Carr’s reporting, according to a former Miramax executive. Mr. Carr wrote in the profile that Mr. Weinstein seemed to have “near-perfect visibility into my notebook,” and told friends that Mr. Weinstein called him before publication to read a line he had written.
Beware the Coywolf: Cops Warn of Hybrid Creature Sighting in New York City Suburb (NBC4)
Police are cautioning residents to stay away from a large hybrid coyote that’s been wandering around a New York City suburb. The Clarkstown Police Department in Rockland County posted the warning about the "coywolf" -- part coyote, part wolf — on Facebook, along with a photo, early Monday after the creature was seen near Congers.