Opening Bell: 9.10.18

Moonves forced out; Ma stepping down; Crypto crashing hard; Urine therapy is in; and more!
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Leslie Moonves out as CBS CEO after sexual harassment allegations [CNBC]
CBS announced Moonves will depart as chairman, president and chief executive officer "effective immediately."
The company said COO Joseph Ianniello will now act as president and acting CEO "while the Board conducts a search for a permanent successor."
The allegations against Moonves were brought to light in a New Yorker article by Ronan Farrow in August in which six women accused Moonves of sexual misconduct and damaging their careers. A second New Yorker article by Farrow published on Sunday contained allegations by six more women. Moonves denied the allegations and characterized his relationships with some of the women as consensual.

LesMoonves

Alibaba’s Daniel Zhang to Succeed Jack Ma as Chairman Next Year [WSJ]
Mr. Ma made the announcement on his 54th birthday, saying he has “lots of dreams to pursue” including working in education again. Before founding Alibaba in 1999, Mr. Ma was a teacher—he is known at the company as “Teacher Ma.”
In a letter addressed to customers, shareholders and employees—referred to as “Aliren,” or “People of Alibaba”—Mr. Ma said he would stay on the company’s board until the 2020 annual shareholders meeting.

China vows to respond if U.S. takes new steps on trade [Reuters]
On Friday, Trump said he was ready to levy additional taxes on practically all Chinese imports, threatening duties on $267 billion of goods over and above planned tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese products.
“If the U.S. side obstinately clings to its course and takes any new tariff measures against China, then the Chinese side will inevitably take countermeasures to resolutely protect our legitimate rights,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular briefing, when asked about Trump’s warning.

Crypto Wipeout Deepens to $640 Billion as Ether Leads Declines [Bloomberg]
Ether, the second-largest virtual currency, slumped 10 percent from its level at 5 p.m. New York time on Friday, according to Bloomberg composite pricing. Bitcoin lost 2.6 percent, while the market capitalization of digital assets tracked by CoinMarketCap.com shrank to about $197 billion -- down almost $640 billion from its January peak.
Cryptocurrencies have declined for five of the past six weeks amid concern that a broader adoption of digital assets will take longer than some had anticipated. That worry was underscored over the weekend after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission temporarily suspended trading in two exchange-traded notes linked to cryptocurrencies and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin told Bloomberg that the days of explosive growth in the blockchain industry have likely come and gone.

Volkswagen Trial Offers Hedge Funds a Chance to Settle Old Scores [NYT]
Elliott Management, the hedge fund founded by Paul E. Singer, was among the firms burned in 2008 trying to bet against Volkswagen shares. The stock price rose instead, and while the funds claimed market manipulation, they never found a court that would agree.
Now a new case offers Elliott a chance at redemption. A subsidiary of the fund is bankrolling a group of institutional investors who are suing Volkswagen because of the losses they suffered as a result of the company’s emissions cheating. A German court will begin hearing evidence in the case on Monday.

Snap's Chief Strategy Officer Imran Khan to leave [Reuters]
Khan, 41, whose last day has not been determined, became the chief strategy officer in 2015. He was one of the highest paid Snap executives and was instrumental in taking the company public in March last year.
At the time of joining, Khan received stock worth about $145 million, according to media reports.
Khan said the departure is not related to any disagreements with Snap, the company said.
The company’s finance head Andrew Vollero left in May and its vice president of monetization engineering, Stuart Bowers, quit to join Tesla Inc.

'Urine therapy' is the latest health craze [NYPost]
Proponents of drinking your own pee and rubbing it on your skin claim the practice leads to the fountain of youth. “After I started fasting, the pee stopped smelling and started tasting like coconut water,” said Julia Sillaman, a 26-year-old painter from Maryland.

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Schapiro SEC Reign Nears End With Rescue Mission Not Done (Bloomberg) Admirers and critics agree Schapiro rescued the agency from the threat of extinction when she was appointed by President Barack Obama four years ago. Still, she hasn’t fulfilled her mission -- to overcome the SEC’s image as a failed watchdog by punishing those who steered the financial system toward disaster and by proving regulators can head off future breakdowns. “It was harder than I thought it was going to be,” Schapiro, 57, said during an interview in her office that looks out on the Capitol dome. “You have this nice little box of things you want to do all tied up with a bow, and you walk in the door and it’s very hard to keep at least one eye on that agenda while you’re dealing with the flash crashes and the new legislation and the whole range of things that happened,” she said. 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Europe Agrees On Banking Supervisor (WSJ) European leaders early Friday agreed to have a new supervisor for euro-zone banks up and running next year, a step that will pave the way for the bloc's bailout fund to pump capital directly into banks throughout the single-currency area. John Paulson Doubles Down On Housing (WSJ) Hedge-fund manager John Paulson famously made nearly $4 billion in 2007 correctly betting that the housing bubble, fueled by the subprime mortgage market, would pop. Then the billionaire investor somewhat reversed course, arguing that the housing cycle had hit a low point. "If you don't own a home, buy one," he said in a 2010 speech at the University Club in New York. "If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes, buy a third and lend your relatives the money to buy a home." So far, that bet has been a loser: The Wall Street tycoon lost about $3 billion personally in 2011, according to people close to the hedge-fund manager, speculating that the economy would recover faster than it did. But through the downturn Mr. Paulson—whose net worth is estimated to be around $11 billion, according to people familiar with his situation—continued his real estate spending spree. Over the last eight years, he has spent more than $145 million on six properties, including two estates in Southampton, N.Y., two properties near Aspen, Colo., and two residences in Manhattan, where he is based, according to public records. (He later sold one of the Southampton properties, for $10 million in 2009, a year after buying a larger estate nearby). In June, Mr. Paulson snapped up a 90-acre Aspen ranch and an adjoining property from Prince Bandar bin Sultan for a total of $49 million, according to public records, one of the highest prices ever paid for property in the area. Ben Stein: Taxes Are Too Low (Mediaite) Author and economist Ben Stein joined Fox & Friends on Thursday where he stunned the hosts after he called for raising the tax rates on people making more than $2 million per year. He said that he did not think that the United States simply had a spending problem, and cited the early post-war period as an example of a time when you could have high tax rates and high growth. “I hate to say this on Fox – I hope I’ll be allowed to leave here alive – but I don’t think there is any way we can cut spending enough to make a meaningful difference,” said Stein. “We’re going to have to raise taxes on very, very rich people. People with incomes of, say, $2, $3, $4 million a year and up. 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Cooling The Pits: ICE Yelling Ends (WSJ) Augustine Lauria knew his 37-year career as a floor trader was over when he got a memo from IntercontinentalExchange in late July announcing the closing of the exchange operator's last trading pits. Friday will be the last chance the 61-year-old trader will get to put on his navy-blue and yellow trading jacket and badge. It will be the final day of rough-and-tumble "open-outcry" commodities trading on the ICE-owned pits in lower Manhattan where options on cotton, coffee, cocoa, sugar and orange juice are bought and sold. "What can I do? I can count fast and yell loud," says Mr. Lauria, who boards the Staten Island Ferry before sunrise to get to work in time for the 8:10 a.m. bell. Amanda Larrivee Speaks Out about Incident at Samuel’s (ABC) Amanda Larrivee and her brother Robert Larrivee were arrested at Samuels Sports Bar Sunday for allegedly stealing TV’s from the bathroom. 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