Opening Bell: 1.10.18
Trump Must Keep DACA Protections for Now, Judge Says [NYT]
Saying the decision to kill it was improper, Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco wrote that the administration must “maintain the DACA program on a nationwide basis” as the legal challenge to the president’s decision goes forward.
Warren Buffett takes a step closer to naming a successor as Berkshire appoints Abel and Jain to board as vice chairs [CNBC]
Abel, 55, will be vice chair of the non-insurance businesses and will likely be seen by Wall Street as the most likely to ascend into Buffett's role eventually. Abel currently is the Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company, which he joined in 1992.
Jain, 66, was named vice chair of the insurance operations. Jain is the executive vice president of National Indemnity Company and joined the Berkshire Hathaway Insurance Group in 1986.
Kodak Catches Crypto Fever [WSJ]
Shares of Eastman Kodak more than doubled after the company waded into the digital-currency world with plans to launch an initial coin offering.
Kodak on Tuesday said the coin, KodakCoin, would be the backbone of a new platform that will help photographers license their work and track the unlicensed use of their images. The coin uses the technology behind bitcoin, called blockchain, to keep a digital ledger of the photographs.
Bill Gross Calls a Bond Bear Market After Treasury Yield Surges [Bloomberg]
“Bond bear market confirmed,” Gross said in a Twitter posting on Tuesday, noting that 25-year trend lines had been broken in five- and 10-year Treasury maturities. The billionaire fund manager at Janus said last year that 10-year yields persistently above 2.4 percent would signal a bear market, though added in an interview last week that even in such an environment, investors probably won’t lose a lot of money.
After 12 years at the helm, two bank CEOs ponder the future [CNBC]
Jamie Dimon formally became CEO of J. P. Morgan Chase on Jan. 1, 2006, and Lloyd Blankfein took the reins of Goldman Sachs just six months later. Both executives have successfully steered two of the world's most celebrated financial institutions through the most turbulent decade for banking since the 1930s.
Now that the external environment is finally improving for their sector and their companies' respective share prices have responded accordingly, is it time for these executives to bow out on the perfect high? The median tenure of an S&P 500 CEO is just four years; these two have each been around for 12.
And if they do decide now is the time, who are the leading contenders to replace them?
The future of stripping: Robot strippers all set to pole dance alongside human performers [IBT]
Twin robots #R2DoubleD and #TripleCPU, are gearing up for the event where they will be 'performing' at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 9 until January 13. Sapphire Las Vegas, will be the ones to debut the robots and have quite the catchphrase ready to announce them too.
Sapphire claims that these robots' "motherboards bring all the boys to the yard."