UPDATE - 1:16 EST - The Houston Chronicle issues a scathing article calling for Cox's resignation over his handling of the SEC subpoenas. Seems like the media outside of CNBC and the NY financial machine understand what is going on, and they are calling it like it is. Folks, this is a must read - nobody West of Riverside Drive is fooled by the NY media's shenanigans. This is just more proof. We know what is going on. Send a copy to your favorite SEC commissioner or elected official, and see to it that this link is widely disseminated. The tiles are coming off the shuttle...
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Is that bad, when you sell a bunch of stock, and you and your company have been served with an SEC subpoena, but nobody has been told?
I mean, is that wrong?
Because I think that poor Mr. Cramer is being demonized unfairly. I mean, sure, it looks very, very ugly – almost looks as though somebody was selling-ay before the news went public-ay. But we all know those things don’t happen.
Why, in the spirit if Herb, let’s try a thought experiment: If OSTK had been notified of a formal SEC investigation into its involvement with Gradient and Rocker, and Byrne himself had been served, and then Byrne kept it hidden for 2 weeks while he suddenly made the first sales of his life, would Mr. Greenberg be crying foul?
Tut tut. Of course not. You can bet that the press surrounding that hypothetical would be as fair and balanced as everything we have seen yet in this matter.
Didn’t Martha go to the bighouse for trading on insider information in advance of that info being made public? Here’s a link to the sales: http://biz.yahoo.com/t/23/246.html
Here’s a simple graph to indicate the timing of the over half a million dollars in stock sales by our man:
Now, a cynic might think that Mr. Cramer was dumping TSCM like it was radioactive almost immediately after finding out about the SEC proceedings, but thankfully I’m not a cynic. No, I view things like this as an example of the marvelous way the world works – David Rocker bought huge numbers of put options just a few days before the WSJ puts out a story that cuts NFI’s stock price in half? Pure chance. Deci-million dollar good fortune for one of God’s children. Jim Cramer sells a boatload of TSCM immediately after discovering that the Federales are coming over the hill at him? All a big misunderstanding. Rumor floated without identifying sources that TSCM going to be sold? Stories circulate. Rocker sells huge chunk of his holdings at wildly inflated prices due to story inflation? More fate smiling on his lucky head.
Interesting that Jim's announcement of his planned sale agreement came out on in a TSCM press release on Businesswire….on……..drumroll please………..Feb. 7!!! The day after the date the subpoenas were inked. Talk about your coincidences. I can’t make this up.
Hello…..is anyone at the SEC paying attention? Are the lights on?
As an aside, Herb is claiming to be a victim of conspiracy. What is fascinating is that he can selectively omit the questionable activity in his coverage of companies like OSTK and NFI (who just announced record earnings, again, for the 4th straight year - 3.5 of which Herb has been malligning them incessantly in grossly inaccurate articles. Maybe if Herb read things like this analysis of apparent frontrunning of his negative NFI armaligningfront-runningticles - 32 in one year - he would have a better understanding of why his conduct reeks to high heavens. Did I mention that Rocker is widely believed to be the big short in NFI, too?)
This just gets wilder and wilder. Meanwhile, Herb is on CNBC every hour on the hour attacking Byrne, who I was just told appeared on that station holding up a placard with TheSanityCheck.com’s name on it – how coincidental that Reuters got the URL WRONG in their story about it, ensuring that nobody would get to the site if they tried from that article. See? The world is full of coincidences. Amazing coincidences.
As Representative Charles Schumer said during the S&L crisis hearing by the House Banking Committee in January, 1989, when discussing the windfall profit that Ron Perelman received by graciously agreeing to come to the “assistance” of a group of distressed S&Ls (about $900 million tax benefits for $315 million cash paid):
“Why is it only white folks who get that kind of a deal?”