The NY Post's Chris Byron was for years one of my favorite columnists. Bright, economic in his use of language, on point.
Not lately.
Read his latest column here.
What's wrong with it? Well, let's see, For starters, Chris seems unable to distinguish between legal short selling, and failing to deliver - a practice largely illegal, and believed to be a major problem for companies targeted by stock manipulators.
Why this cognitive dissonance? Don't know. It isn't as though it is a tough idea to comprehend, or that he doesn't know the difference.
One is legal.
The other is taking money from a buyer, then failing to deliver the shares the buyer paid for. Fraud, pretty much by any layman's understanding of what constitutes fraud. It is illegal, except when performed by a market maker in a narrow set of bona-fide market making instances.
Chris embarks on a harangue that had me scratching my head - I mean, you have to work to pretend you don't understand this after the amount of coverage it has received - really work at it. And Chris is apparently a hard worker. He introduces a lot of colorful history, and posits anecdotal factoids about a few companies he feels benefited by being on Reg SHO - while ignoring the companies for which hard data actually exists: NFI, with 12.5% of its total outstanding shares failed trades at one point, OSTK with 12.5+% of its shares currently failed. These companies provably have been massacred by being on SHO, and yet they escape his focused gaze.
Why would the big board poster boys for illegal failing to deliver be ignored by Chris when trying to make his point?
Why would he try to blur the line between legal short selling, where a borrowed share obtained before selling it is delivered to the buyer, and failing to deliver, which as the name implies, is the failure to deliver what was paid for - and is generally illegal?
Why is he painting legal short sellers as victims of some sort of persecution, when nobody has any issue with legitimate short selling?
It seems like there is something in the water in New York, where guys who are smart enough to do in-depth, comprehensive analysis of complex issues can't make distinctions a five year old can once the issue comes to the topic of market manipulation.
Why is that, do you think?
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Senator Richard Shelby, head of the Senate Banking Committee, was on CNBC this morning, in a spectacular performance which highlighted what is wrong with the system.
Shelby said he didn't think that naked short selling - again, taking a buyer's money, then NOT delivering the product paid for - was fraud. Or more specifically, that he hasn't had anyone tell him that it was fraud.
That would be Senator Richard Shelby, apparently lying on national TV.
Lying? What? A senator lie? How can that be?
Well, I know of a number of letters to Shelby, clearly explaining exactly how failing to deliver/naked short selling is fraud. There are a number in the forums section in the Wall of Letters. So he has been told that, numerous times, by his constituents.
So he lied. Unless his defense is that nobody has actually spoken verbally to him, and that letters don't constitute being told. Does everyone see why posting the hundreds of letters to the Wall of Letters is vital, so as to expose the lie as it is uttered? These weasels will try to claim they didn't know there was a problem once the shit hits the fan - which it is starting to do. Don't let them get away with it - the data is damning, and it is available to one and all for perusal.
But it gets better. He espouses the belief that a complete absence of any regulations for the entities responsible for the majority of trading on Wall Street is a good thing, not a bad thing. Sort of exactly like it was in 1929 - the good old days where large stock pools did whatever they felt like in the markets, and nobody did anything.
That ended well.
He ignores that hedge funds are immune from any serious scrutiny by the SEC - allegedly because of co-opting of that agency by the Beltway, and Wall Street - and further goes on to share his notions that "if it isn't broken, don't fix it." And in a breathtaking display of hypocrisy, he takes the following position WRT the SEC and its funding: "Congress will provide them with what they need if they make the case for it." Gasparino replied, "They've said for years they're underfunded." Shelby: "I have not heard from Cox."
And this is the guy that killed hearings into naked short selling, and is supposed to be investigating SEC corruption allegations tendered by Aguirre, and is heading up the oversight committee that is the watchdog for Wall Street and the SEC.
Anyone confused as to why we need a special prosecutor appointed now? Someone with no ties to Wall Street?
This was one of the most disgraceful performances I've ever witnessed, but was useful in clearly identifying the problem. I didn't have any questions after seeing it. Pretty much got it cold.
The system is corrupted at the highest levels, and the prisoners are running the prison.
Any questions?
As an aside, Mark Faulk just emailed me to confirm that there was not an ounce of truth to Shelby's claims. I'll let him write about it, but suffice it to say that it doesn't pay to lie on national TV when the blog world is watching...
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On CNBC just now, the commentator says the charges made by Aguirre against the hedge fund in question are "outrageous". 18 trades vs. 136000 trades. Why would Mack risk it?
Uh, wow, why would Boesky risk it? Why would Milken, the king of junk bonds and a guy making billions, risk it?
Same reason as ever: They think they are immune from prosecution, and will never get caught. And they own the press machine now, so can spin things in their favor.
This is the sort of logic reminiscent of the Milken PR campaign: "Why would a national treasure at the top of his game risk everything to cheat the system out of a few drops more?"
96 felony counts, and a guilty plea on 4, with hard time done show the lie to that line of reasoning.
I wonder how Gasparino keeps from vomiting these days?
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In a quick blurb, I read the lapdog's latest fumbled attempt to seem impartial about naked short selling.
I was going to comment, and then I received the following email, which nicely summarizes Herb's flailing:
"He actually entitled his blog "Herb vs. Glenn on Overstock, Naked Shorting" and then has the audacity to repeatedly tell Patch and Faulk that it is not his intent to discuss Naked shorting in his blog (Uh, Herb check your own Blog title).. The man is a complete and utter fool!"
Perhaps some journalist should inquire in writing as to whether he is high on drugs, drunk, or mentally ill when he was writing his blog. Oh wait. That is only reserved for CEOs of publicly traded companies whose shares are over 12.5% naked shorted as of a little while ago...
Welcome to Wall Street...