Opening Bell: 9.21.18
Bullish Mood Buoys Stocks as Treasury Yields Rise: Markets Wrap [Bloomberg]
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index headed for its best week in six months and equity-index futures signaled a higher U.S. open. The MSCI All-Country World Index was poised for a seven-month high after its strongest week since May, as stocks across Asia capped their best two-week rally since February. Japan’s Topix Index closed at the highest in four months.
Core European bonds inched higher after data showed euro-area expansion edged lower in September as manufacturing export orders slumped to the weakest in five years, though the euro clung onto gains to head for a three-month high. Italian bonds climbed as Finance Minister Giovanni Tria prepares a draft budget. Crude oil headed for a second weekly advance, leading the Bloomberg Commodity Index to its highest level in more than a month.
Danske Bank money laundering 'giga scandal' spreads to Britain [Reuters]
“This is a giga scandal,” European Union Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, joining a growing chorus of calls for a clampdown on the billions of euros which are alleged to have been “washed” through European banks.
An NCA spokeswoman said the British agency was working with partners across government to restrict the ability of criminals to use UK-registered companies in money laundering.
British and Russian entities dominate a list of accounts used to make 200 billion euros ($236 billion) in payments through Danske Bank’s branch in Estonia between 2007 and 2015, many of which the bank said this week are suspicious.
JPMorgan: An economic cold war may be coming [CNBC]
Stock markets in both countries have climbed this week despite fresh tariff announcements.
Analysts said the duties were not as severe as traders expected, and there is still hope of reconciliation. But reality may prove otherwise as the world's two largest economies, each coming from a vastly different culture, pursue their own development.
"Now we need to think about whether this current trade war will turn into an economic cold war. We hope it doesn't," said Jing Ulrich, managing director and vice chairman of Asia Pacific at J.P. Morgan Chase.
Goldman’s Top Stock-Trading Executive to Depart [WSJ]
Paul Russo, who has run Goldman’s equities business since 2012, is negotiating his exit and is likely to depart in the coming weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm is likely to give additional responsibilities to three executives—Brian Levine, Jeff Nedelman and Phil Berlinski—while Mr. Russo’s counterpart, Michael Daffey, continues to head the business globally from London, some of the people said.
Mike Novogratz: Cannabis stocks today are like cryptocurrencies in Dec. 2017 [YahooFinance]
Former hedge fund manager Mike Novogratz has reinvented himself as an authority on cryptocurrencies. In the past year, cryptocurrencies surged to stratospheric levels in December 2017 before crashing. But Novogratz, the founder of Galaxy Digital, still sees a bright future for the asset class.
Furthermore, Novogratz sees parallels in the recent mania surrounding cannabis stocks.
“I think the cannabis business is going to grow and it’s going to grow relatively rapidly,” he said at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit. “I think the prices feel like Bitcoin and Ethereum did in December of last year.”
Private Equity Firm TPG Plans to Raise Second Social Impact Fund [DealBook]
Now TPG is preparing to start raising a second Rise fund after receiving strong interest from investors, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations. The Rise team has also been in talks to take over the $1 billion health care fund run by Abraaj, the troubled Dubai-based private equity firm, these people added.
TPG executives said Rise’s biggest achievement was figuring out a way to measure an investment’s benefits for society, while generating returns similar to traditional investment funds. Bill McGlashan, the Rise fund’s chief executive, declined to comment on its actual performance or on the fund-raising efforts.
Woman uses plunger to make own bus handle. [UPI]
An ingenious passenger on a bus in China was filmed making her own handle by affixing a toilet plunger to the vehicle's ceiling.
The video shows a woman boarding a bus in Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province, and looking for an available handle to hold as the bus starts to move.
The woman discovers all of the handles are in use, so she brandishes a toilet plunger and quickly suctions it to the vehicle's ceiling, making her own handle.