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Opening Bell: 8.17.20

Opening Bell: 8.17.20

Slouching towards pandemonium; dollar doldrums; insider-trading German style; and more!

Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)

Slouching towards pandemonium; dollar doldrums; insider-trading German style; and more!

S&P 500 Futures Show Benchmark Shuffling to Record High [WSJ]
Futures tied to the S&P 500 ticked up 0.3%, pointing to tepid gains after the opening bell…. “We had this vibe that the bottom of the economic slump wasn’t quite as bad as people’s baseline forecast,” said Lyn Graham-Taylor, senior rates strategist at Rabobank. “But there’s also a feeling right now that the recovery is not going to be a quick ‘V’ shape, it’s going to be slower….”
Bond and currency markets were also quiet. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes ticked down to 0.696%, from 0.708% Friday. The WSJ Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of other currencies, slipped 0.1%.

Traders Brace for Haywire Markets Around Presidential Election [WSJ]
The investors are going beyond the normal hedging ahead of a potential change in power in Washington. Instead they are betting on volatility and a possible market tumble later in the year…. The election worries amplify existing concerns about the weak economy, a possible second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and the highflying market. The bearish bet is that turmoil around the election hits the already fragile economy as the cooler months bring on more infections, all hitting the stock market that is priced for a recovery.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Unloads Bank Stocks [WSJ]
Berkshire’s holdings of Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. stock dropped by more than $3 billion apiece in the second quarter, according to regulatory filings made public Friday. The company also dissolved its stake in Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which was worth about $300 million at the end of the first quarter.
The conglomerate has simultaneously been adding to its ownership of Bank of America Corp. in recent weeks and now owns roughly 12% of the company, according to FactSet.

Hedge Funds Are Short on Dollar for First Time in Two Years [Bloomberg]
“The longer term downtrend is clear, especially versus countries that are now doing QE and are experiencing a better recovery,” Ashvin Murthy, founder of Singapore-based hedge fund AVM Global Opportunity Fund, said of the U.S. currency. “You could have a correction in the trend but it would be an opportunity to sell into U.S. dollar strength.”

A Hedge Fund Veteran Mounts a Comeback [II]
[JAT Capital founder John] Thaler returned to fund management in January of this year, joining Wexford as a portfolio manager of the Wexford Core Equities Fund.
Now, the portfolio manager is spinning out the fund, to be renamed Hampton Road Capital Management, with Wexford as an anchor investor. In its seven months of existence, the Wexford Core Equities Fund returned 18 percent gross through July 31, 2020.

Sixth Street Partners Amasses One of the Largest Private-Capital Funds [WSJ]
Sixth Street Partners has brought in $10 billion for its flagship fund, a nine-year-old vehicle known as Tao, since it was reopened to new investment in April, according to people familiar with the matter. It now totals $22.5 billion and the firm has told investors it would cap the fund at around $24 billion at the end of September…. Sixth Street is the former credit arm of TPG.

German Market Watchdog Let Staff Trade in Wirecard Shares [WSJ]
In the first six months of 2020, 2.4% of all financial transactions undertaken by employees of BaFin, the regulator, were in Wirecard shares and derivatives, Germany’s finance ministry said in a written response to questions by opposition lawmakers…. This was up from 1.7% in the entire year before. BaFin has said it opened a market manipulation investigation into Wirecard at the end of January 2019….
“It certainly does not help to build market confidence when the staff of the market regulator and bank supervisor is allowed to trade on a company which is under investigation, owns a bank and does payment services,” said Jérôme Legras, head of research at Axiom Alternative Investments.

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Germany Approves Greek Aid (WSJ) German parliamentarians approved with an overwhelming majority a package of new aid measures for Greece Friday, clinching support for a plan to close a €14 billion ($18.17 billion) gap in the heavily indebted nation's finances and to ready a near €44 billion tranche of promised aid. The vote shows that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been able to consolidate the support of her center-right coalition of Christian Democrats and Free Democrats, many of whom have expressed skepticism that Greece can be saved without significant costs to German taxpayers. Her coalition voted 90% in favor of the measures. Leave "fairy world" behind, Draghi tells euro zone (Reuters) "We have not yet emerged from the crisis," Draghi told Europe 1 radio. "The recovery for most of the euro zone will certainly begin in the second half of 2013." "The crisis has shown that we were living in a fairy world," the ECB chief later added at a conference with top financial officials, pointing to the unsustainable debts, weak banks and poor policy coordination that gave birth to the crisis three years ago. Obama Takes ‘Fiscal Cliff’ on the Road; Republicans Stew (CNBC) President Barack Obama, reapplying his re-election campaign theme of protecting the middle class, heads to Pennsylvania on Friday suggesting that Republicans could spoil Christmas by driving the country over the "fiscal cliff." The president's road trip, visiting a factory that makes Hasbro's [HAS 38.60 --- UNCH] Tinkertoys, is infuriating Republicans. House Speaker John Boehner called it a "victory lap" as he rejected Obama's proposals to avoid the cliff, the combination of tax increases and spending cuts set to start taking effect in January. Berkshire Hathaway, CaixaBank Agree to Reinsurance Deal (WSJ) Berkshire Hathaway will pay CaixaBank SA million €600 million ($778.7 million) for the future cash flow from a portfolio of life insurance policies, the Barcelona-based bank said Friday, a rare dip into a fiscally stressed euro-zone country for the investment firm run by Warren Buffett. If You Like Late Nights, Try Being an Analyst in Hungary (WSJ) As the clock ticked toward midnight on a recent night, stock analyst Gergely Gabler sat sleepily in his pajamas at the small desk in his bedroom, waiting. Then, just after 12, he sprang into action, evaluating the newly released earnings report of Hungary's largest bank. For the next two hours, Mr. Gabler worked on a report about OTP Bank's performance for clients of his firm, Hungarian brokerage Equilor Investments, before catching some shut eye, only to awake about 3½ hours later so he could be in his office to field questions by 7 a.m. Burning the midnight oil is a painful quarterly tradition for analysts and financial journalists in Hungary, where the country's biggest blue-chip companies publish their results in the wee hours, after markets in New York have closed and long before they open anywhere in Europe. "I'm a night owl, so I don't mind staying up," Mr. Gabler said. The hard part, the 28-year-old said, is getting out of bed the next day. That morning, he grabbed a red-and-black can of Hell, a caffeine-laden Hungarian energy drink, to fuel his workday. Moody's Puts Aston Martin on Watch for Downgrade (NYT) “The review was prompted by a significant deterioration in Aston Martin’s liquidity profile as per end September 2012, caused by a much weaker cash generation and operating performance in the third quarter than anticipated by the company and compared to Moody’s expectations,” Falk Frey, a Moody’s analyst, said in a statement. Harvard Approves BDSM Group (Crimson) It started last October with a meal in Currier dining hall with a handful of friends who shared something in common: an affinity for kinky sex. More than a year after the group first began informally meeting over meals to discuss issues and topics relating to kinky sex, Harvard College Munch has grown from seven to about 30 members and is one of 15 student organization that will be approved by the Committee on Student Life this Friday. Michael, who was granted anonymity by The Crimson to protect his privacy, is the founder of Munch, an informal lunch or dinner meeting for people across the kink community. For him, the recognition will provide a sense of ease for current and future members, knowing they are receiving institutional support. “It’s a little hyperbolic for me to get teary-eyed and paternal about sophomores, but it’s really a joy to see the experience they will have now,” Michael said. Michael said there are many benefits to being officially recognized on campus such as being able to poster for events and promote Munch’s presence...But for Michael, the biggest advantage to being recognized comes with “the fact of legitimacy,” he said. “[Our recognition] shows we are being taken seriously.” Mae, a member of the organization who asked to be identified by her middle name, said since its formation the group has provided her with a comfortable space to discuss her interests. “I didn’t think that anyone was even remotely interested [in kink] on campus,” Mae said. “It’s a community where you can feel safe, and you can feel comfortable talking about [kink].” Cohen's Damage Control (NYP) Beleaguered hedge fund honcho Steve Cohen held a conference call yesterday for his roughly 1,000 employees to explain potential civil charges against his firm, SAC Capital Advisors. The call with SAC’s employees went over similar talking points as the call with investors the previous day, according to a person familiar with the call. In the latest call, officials notified employees that last week, the $14 billion Stamford, Conn., hedge fund received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission tied to trading by a former portfolio manager who was arrested Nov. 20 on insider trading charges. McDonald’s Starved for Ideas as Burger King Lures Diners (Bloomberg) Burger King has been excelling at a game McDonald’s worked to perfect years ago, introducing a steady stream of new menu items, such as snack wraps and gingerbread sundaes for the holidays. McDonald’s has “not had anything to talk about of substance,” Michael Kelter, a New York-based analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in an interview. “People are going elsewhere.” Hong Kong IPOs Generate Little Excitement (WSJ) Hong Kong appears unlikely to regain its position as the world's top venue for initial public offerings anytime soon. In recent days, the city's biggest IPO in two years drew only lukewarm support, while another deal ran up against insufficient demand and a third was postponed. Recession Left Baby Bust as U.S. Births Lowest Since 1920 (Bloomberg) The country’s birth rate fell 8 percent from 2007 to 2010, according to a Pew Research Center report. The rate dropped 6 percent for U.S.-born women and plummeted 14 percent for foreign-born females since 2007, the onset of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The decline continued last year to the lowest point since records began in 1920. Rogue caviar fugitive Mario Garbarino admits his guilt in fishy egg smuggling scheme (NYDN) Isidoro (Mario) Garbarino, 69, who went on the lam 23 years ago pleaded guilty Thursday to smuggling $10 million worth of Russian and Iranian savruga and beluga to New York more than two decades ago. Garbarino’s plea deal requires him to pay $3 million in restitution. He also faces up to four years in prison when he is sentenced in January. Garbarino, a supplier to fancy gourmet shops including Zabar's, was indicted in 1987 for cheating the government on import duties. Feds say his Bronx company, Aquamar Gourmet Imports, engaged in an elaborate scheme to smuggle more than 100,000 pounds of the expensive delicacy from 1984 to 1987. As part of the plot, Garbarino switched the high-quality caviar with much cheaper American caviar which he then sold to Pan Am, other airlines and cruise ships operators as the real thing. In 1989, Garbarino fled. He was nabbed two months ago in Panama and extradited to New York. "Isidoro Garbarino ran his high-end importation business in a low-end way — cheating the government out of millions of dollars in tax revenues and defrauding his international clients who paid top dollar for exotic caviar they did not receive," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara...Garbarino admitted he “occasionally misrepresented the nature of the caviar” to avoid paying the required taxes.

(Getty Images)
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