| | Register
Who is Bob O'Brien?
Sanity Check Archive
Click Here to see Bob's Old Sanity Check articles.
About our Blogs

Blogs found on this website represent the opinion of the author. For more information please visit our terms of use.
Funny Bunny
Looking for something a little lighter?
Catch Bob's more irreverent and amusing pieces in his Funny Bunny Blog.

Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men

Location: Blogs Bob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog    
Posted by:   bobo 9/29/2007 7:54 PM

I've read 'em all now. Letter after letter from the industry side, basically arguing that to eliminate the market maker exemption would bring the world as we know it to its knees, threatening the all powerful Wall Street buzz word - liquidity.

Imagine, they argue, that you had to pay to hedge options in SHO stocks - why, that would reflect the cost of hedging a hard or impossible to borrow stock, and would dampen the liquidity that comes from what is essentially a free pass to counterfeit at will! Can't have that, can we. Imagine if liquidity dried up in put option speculation for SHO stocks - why, I'm not sure you or I would be the same ever again. I mean, all that liquidity must be helping us in some way we are missing, so removing it would somehow change our lives for the worse, right?

What's amusing is that liquidity in these stocks' derivatives markets are really only important to stock manipulators, and to those deriving their income by lots of trades in stocks that really don't have shares with which to trade (meaning no real sellers, thus sale of non-existent shares must replace the legitimate market system).

You wanna know what you don't see? You don't see one letter discussing that the SEC is precluded, via Section 36 of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act, from issuing exemptions, unless the exemptions are in the public interest, AND are necessary for the protection of investors. You won't see any comment letters from the industry trying to tackle why being allowed to naked short sell already badly brutalized companies protects investors, or why investors require being saddled with the expense and risk that is really that of the options speculator - nobody wants to try to claim that is necessary for investor protection.

Nope. Nobody wants to talk about that on the industry side, preferring to discuss how their trading will be dampened by the elimination of an exemption that should never have been enacted in the first place.

And I don't blame them. Because there is no comeback to that. There is no facile or glib discussion wherein investors require that exemption for their protection. Wall Street won't mount that argument. Because then they have to admit that investors don't require the exemption to be protected, thus the SEC should never have allowed it at all. Instead, they prefer to mewl about red herrings, and statistics, and how they might suffer should their windfall loophole subsidy end.

We are treated to letter after letter whining about how profits will be hurt by eliminating the windfall exemption, however not a peep about why the SEC shouldn't be adhering to Section 36's simple litmus  test:  Is this exemption necessary for investor protection and is it in the public interest?

Because the obvious, and only answer, is, "Of course not."

---------------------

On another note, who wants to bet that the Rocker/Gradient innocents ignore that they have been chucked out of every court in the land with their ridiculous free speech argument, and try to get this heard by the US Supreme Court? Not because they stand a chance in hell of prevailing, but as yet another stalling tactic? IF we see this card played, you gotta know that the guilt stink is WAY more obvious and egregious than anyone suspected - that the first day of discovery is one to be feared like the plague.

Not saying it will happen, but don't be too surprised if it does.

Wall Street cannot afford discovery to get started in earnest. So it will stall till the last possible second. And my hunch is that once it does start, the accused will try every trick in the book to avoid actually providing what is requested - consider the recent $12.5 million find against Morgan Stanley, where they basically refused to furnish emails to those accusing them of wrongdoing, and instead destroyed them, knowing that they would get a wrist-slap fine like $12 mil rather than having to disgorge billions in guilt bucks to plaintiffs and regulators. How bad did those emails have to be to just burn them rather than ultimately providing them? Use your imagination.

When the rule of law is treated like bottom wipe by the royalty of Wall Street, and instead of going to a cell, they have to write a small check to continue their misbehavior, you can bet that nobody is going to do anything they don't feel like.

And that's this week's ugly reminder of how a kid robbing a liquor store goes to jail for 3 years, but a thief in a three piece suit goes to the Hamptons while his attorney haggles over how many pennies it will cost to rip off a generation.

Nice.
Copyright ©2007 Bob O'Brien
Permalink  |  Trackback
Comments (24)
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Sean on 10/1/2007 11:00 AM
Bobo, in your humble opinion is the October 15th 2007 Date for the end of the Grandfather Clause going to cause these miscreants to settle their NS positions or will it be business as usual with more shenanigans on the horizon? Thank you for you time and response as always.I notice a Significant rise in the price of Overstock recently so that makes me feel that justice may be trying to rear its ugly head.SMZ!!!
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By n-tres-ted on 9/30/2007 5:13 PM
Yes, Bobo, and I suppose many of the letters from the securities industry "bigs" were sent after the deadline so the SEC will have yet another reason to extend the deadline again so as to be able to consider all the comments received. Stall and delay. Those are their watchwords when they are already in the position they wish to be.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By old duffer on 10/1/2007 11:20 AM
Only bullets will work.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Soaking Wet on 10/1/2007 11:22 AM
Most real world investments are not liquid. If I want to sell my house, my car, my boat, my Picaso, etc. I would need to market them.

The bid isn't readily available and days, weeks or months could pass before a buyer came along.

It isn't possible to sell my house, then ten minutes later buy it back. It just doesn't work like that. When I want to buy something in the real world, I may get in a bidding war and pay more than asking price. The sellers doesn't create liquidity by printing a second deed to the house to make sure the sale goes through.

In the case of the stock market, they need to be able to always take your money. Options market makers, specialists and market makers PRICE FIX and set the price that trades will occur at, then they sell IOU's or buy shares depending on if the price is higher or lower than what a free market would have set if not for the corruption.

I bet more than 50% of the time the other side of the trade is not another investor or hedge fund. I think most of the time it is the specialist or mm working against you.

Who was selling when the dot coms were going up? Hardly anyone sells in a rising market, but there was lots of sell side volume as they went up month after month after month. The answer is it was the back offices selling IOU's for the sake of liquidity. Then when they crashed it in 2000 to cover the IOU's, they didn't care that there was no buy side lliquidity and real people betting their retirement nest egg were losing everything.

What they mean by liquidity is they always want to take your money and don't want to get caught in a short squeeze if they underestimate demand.

Liquidity ONLY benefits the market makers and specialists. I'd rather wait a few days to get full price for my investment rather than have it trade at an artificial discount to keep the market liquid and a profit for some knowitall that thinks he has a better understanding of fair price than the free market.

The Canadian TSX resource juniors are illiquid - often the spreads can be 25% or more and they can go days or weeks without trading because the system is computerized and reflects real buyers, real sellers and short sellers only. It works perfectly fine because there are no mm's or specialists skimming spreads as they worship their liquidity god. Investors don't need a lot of liquidity. Most can wait to buy or sell at the best price.

I recommend Richard Ney's books.

http://www.hermes-press.com/neyint.htm

His explanations make so much sense. The people who set up the brokerage system (and also the banking system) make so much money that they control the press, the judiciary and the politicians and they have no interest in being fair.

There are more of us than them and the way to combat them is to inform you friends and get them to inform their friends as change isn't going to come from the bought and paid for politicians and regulators. It is going to come from the grass roots.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By clearthinker on 10/1/2007 11:22 AM
And once again the hens watch as the foxes deal cards....Until someone overseeing the SEC takes DRASTIC action, the game reamains the same....oh what will it take for those watching this charade to do something.....
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Azkole on 10/1/2007 11:23 AM
The bad guys can try to avoid providing the requested information but wouldn't they go down for an obstruction of justice charge? Why don't these guys just settle and be done with it? They have to know they are screwed, especially now that Milberg is going down hard.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/1/2007 11:33 AM
That's not how it works, Azkole. The attorneys representing the bad guys are making huge bank by delaying this as long as possible. So they have a profit motive to stall until the last possible moment. Additionally, the dollar falls in value, so any dollars ultimately paid will be fractional to those lost, or dollars harmed. And finally, they probably have again underestimated Patrick, and don't realize he likely has all the info he needs, and that the discovery is merely to get confirmation to cross confirm already known trading info. They likely believe that he knows far less than he probably does. They seem to have made some grievous errors in underestimating the man, and this is likely just the latest in the series.

What do you think they would do if he knew who had conducted the manipulative trades, and how many there were, and on what dates, and who the brokers were who put them through, and so on. They'd probably figure there was no way that could all be known, thus they could hide. Maybe they would try to classify the data with different names, call the abusive trades something different, so they could claim that he hadn't asked for the data so they provided what he did ask for. Maybe they would stall for as long as humanly possible. Maybe a lot of things we are seeing. But they'd be acting on the mistaken assumption that all was not known.

Maybe I'm just dreaming, but wouldn't it be fun if that was the case? Who knows. I just know understimating Patrick so far has proved a very poor idea.

All IMO, of course.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Azkole on 10/1/2007 12:23 PM
I think you are asking your questions rhetorically as I'm sure you know more than you can say at this point. I hope everything you say is true. Is it the same situation for the NFI case as well?
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/1/2007 12:26 PM
Azkole: You are free to interpret my words however you like. I am merely a holiday rodent with a nose for Wall Street crookery. My opinions are merely my opinions, untutored as they may well be.

Of course it would hold true for NFI, too, if my musings were anything more than idle thoughts, which they aren't.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Azkole on 10/1/2007 3:07 PM
Good to hear. Sometimes I think you're bi-polar on the outcome of it all. Some days you're totally negative thinking the bad guys will get away with it all, other days you sound very confident we'll win. I hope it ends in a lot of $ changing hands but jail time as well for the miscreants.

When it's all said and done the carrot juice is on us bunny!
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/1/2007 3:25 PM
It depends upon what bad guys you are talking about, and what you mean by get away with it all.

Do I think that there is enough evidence to show criminal racketeering by some prominent hedge funds, in the OSTK case? You bet. Criminal racketeering by the prime brokers, acting as a cartel to decimate OSTK's price? Yup. Will OSTK prevail? Sure, assuming two things - the judge can't be bought, and the evidence won't fall under "national security" or some such area where we can't know who was ultimately benefitting from the ill gotten proceeds, as to know that would endanger our national security or the like.

For instance, if my musings in my first fiction book turn out to have some basis in reality, then there well might be an intersection between clandestine factions of the government using the markets to fund needy regimes, or black ops, or whatever. If they ran money through some of these funds, then we might in fact have as a realistic threat, the idea of someone having a chat with the DOJ, and advising them to back off. "The truth? You can't handle the truth!" That is probably not going to happen, but it could. It would explain the smug confidence that these shmucks have had all along - their hole card is a whopper. Alternatively, they could just believe themselves far smarter than the rest of the world, and thus above the vagueries of the law. That's more likely.

The only way I see this playing out is, they buy the judge and jury, or they go down hard/settle, or they have another hole card like the one described, that will render the meat of discovery unusable. My hunch is they are guilty, and know they are guilty, and know that the truth outed will show them to be guilty, thus they will stall till the last possible moment, and then write a check. That's what I'd do. Everyone throw money in a hat, agree to skewer a few bad guys as fall guys so the industry can claim that it was all localized to a few bad apples, pay a toll, and move on. That would satisfy civil, but not criminal, unless they have the pull to keep criminal at bay, which they well might - although the recent arrests on stock loan desks has to be ominous, as it didn't just happen overnight, and low men on totem poles are known to sing to keep bubba at bay.

The reason I mention the DOJ is because one would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see criminal all over these cases, if the allegations turn out to be true. One troubling thing that I can't get past is that nobody seems to be asking the obvious question in the Milberg Weiss scandal: "How did you know which companies would soon be going down, far enough in advance to go pay plaintiffs to buy stock in them? Who told you?"

You notice how nobody in the press, or with a badge, is asking that? Why is that? It is the obvious question. When smart people go suddenly dumb and mute, and can't seem to come to ask the obvious questions, I smell huge rats. And those rats have to have pretty incredible juice to command that sort of silence.

So watch the milberg proceedings as a canary in the mine for how much they can keep the justice system at bay. If nobody ever shows interest in who knew what companies were shortly to be hit, then you know that the juice is powerful indeed.

So to summarize, I either believe these guys will have to nuke OSTK and O'Quinn's HQ's and arrange for Patrick to be hit by a bus, they will have to buy the judge and jury, or they will have to settle. Not a snowball's chance that they are innocent, or that they want this to go to trial. The stalling is expected, as the attorneys are making millions pushing paper around to stall as long as possible.

Wonder who is paying Gradient's millions of fees? Rocker's? You think it's their cash?
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Azkole on 10/2/2007 10:00 PM
Well, if I hadn't been following this closely for the past 4 years or so I would say you're nuts about the money running but I don't disbelieve anything after all that I've learned. I think it's unlikely as you say but do you think this case is too high profile to hide such activity even if it is true? O'Quinn and company have some juice of their own. Patrick's got some Senators on his side too.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By rtway on 10/2/2007 10:01 PM
Bobo, you know my favorite saying is "we fail to see the obvious" and this time you hit on every one of them. But I would exp[ect no less from you as you are usually two turns ahead of the curve. The mere fact of the deadening silence as far as the legal system goes gives testimony to the fact that they are either secretly planning to unload a bomb of charges on some chosen lambs or they have been bought off. I'll go for door number 2.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By JeromeB on 10/2/2007 10:04 PM
I tell ya Bob. Is everyone a crook on Wallstreet. James Stock was one of the plantiffs in the Nanopierce suit against the DTCC. As it turns out he to is a crook


U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Litigation Release No. 20301 / September 27, 2007

SEC v. ProVision Operation Systems, Inc., Robert T. Fletcher III, Richard C. Hill, James W. Stock, and Lawrence D. Morris, Civil Action No. SACV-07-1130-AHS (JWJx) (C.D. Cal.)

SEC Files Charges Against Provision Operation Systems, Inc., Robert T. Fletcher III, Richard C. Hill, James W. Stock for Multi-Million Dollar Offering Fraud, and Against Lawrence D. Morris for Related Charges
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed federal securities fraud and related charges yesterday against ProVision Operation Systems, Inc. ("ProVision"), Robert T. Fletcher III ("Fletcher"), Richard C. Hill ("Hill") and James W. Stock ("Stock"). Fletcher founded ProVision, a development-stage company, purportedly in the business of providing real estate investment advice and training, as well as investment opportunities. Fletcher was ProVision's chief executive officer, chairman and president from approximately July 2003 until March 2005. The Commission's complaint alleges that ProVision and Fletcher fraudulently raised millions of dollars from investors, and then Fletcher used the money for personal expenses and to support his lavish lifestyle, including purchasing jewelry and clothing, and for gambling. According to the complaint, Hill, the company's "Stock Education Consultant," and Stock, who owned an investor relations company, fraudulently promoted and solicited investments in ProVision's stock and other investment opportunities. The complaint also alleges that Lawrence "Larry" D. Morris ("Morris"), a ProVision salesman, earned commissions from ProVision of more than $500,000 for selling ProVision stock. The complaint further alleges that he acted as a broker in these transactions without being registered as required by the federal securities laws.

The Commission's complaint also alleges that:

While raising funds from investors, ProVision and Fletcher fraudulently represented that the company was successful and expanding. They made materially false or misleading statements about ProVision's business operations, profitability and financial condition. ProVision and Fletcher falsely claimed to own or control, or have the ability to acquire, yachts, real property, and millions of tons of a mineral substance called "humate," which they fraudulently claimed was worth $137,000,000.

Hill made materially false or misleading statements about ProVision's future financial condition. Hill and Stock failed to disclose that they were compensated to promote the company. Moreover, they fraudulently represented that they were independent from ProVision.
The complaint alleges that ProVision, Fletcher, Hill and Stock violated the antifraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"), which are Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Exchange Act Rule 10b-5. The complaint further alleges that ProVision, Fletcher and Hill violated the antifraud provision of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"), specifically, Section 17(a). Moreover, according to the complaint, Stock violated the antitouting provision of the federal securities laws, Section 17(b) of the Securities Act. The complaint further alleges that ProVision, Fletcher and Morris violated the offering and registration provisions of the federal securities laws, including Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act, and that Morris violated the broker-registration provision of the federal securities laws, specifically, Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act.

The Commission's complaint seeks an order permanently enjoining each of the defendants from violating the provisions of the federal securities laws detailed above. This order would also require ProVision, Fletcher, Morris and Stock to disgorge, along with prejudgment interest, all ill-gotten gains they obtained as a result of their actions. It would also require ProVision, Fletcher, Stock and Morris to pay civil money penalties and would permanently bar Fletcher, Hill, Stock and Morris from participating in an offering of a penny stock and permanently bar Fletcher from serving as an officer and director of any public company. Further, it would require Fletcher to account for his current financial condition.

Hill, without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint, consented to a final judgment enjoining him from violating Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Exchange Rule 10b-5, and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act, but which does not impose a civil penalty based on his sworn representations concerning his financial condition. This settlement is subject to court approval.

SEC Complaint in this matter



http://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2007/lr20301.htm



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home | Previous Page Modified: 09/27/2007
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By Sean on 10/2/2007 10:02 PM
Alittle off topic but in same park.

The Eagletech Rico filing is now out. Proof of the systemic corruption that was going on in early 2000 to now and these guys are STILL in business, what really gives here? Nobody to protect us little guys huh? I guess you were right, all we need to do is stay out of the markets. They will never be LEGIT!!!
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/2/2007 10:07 PM
Jerome: It's spelled too. Two oo's.

Don't know if he is a crook or not, but if you are asking me whether everyone on Wall Street is, that would be impossible, as everyone on Wall Street isn't rich. Most are, though. All at the middle and top are. So those certainly are the most likely to be crooks. They create nothing, they do nothing, but trade on others' assets and make money from that traffic. Most buy their justice by the pound. It is usually the littler guys, the petty thieves, that the SEC goes after. We already saw how the SEC deals with those with juice. Hands off.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By FOR YOU BOBO on 10/3/2007 7:35 PM
Is there a way for a any big company being naked shorted to petition to take down options in their stock..Wouldnt that solve the problem??? Theres gotta be away to delist options on your stock.....That would end it for the scum were fighting
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By mhelburn on 10/3/2007 7:35 PM
Bobo,

How could the SEC de-register Eagletech knowing that Eagletech was being manipulated by the mob and their WS conspirators? Were they just burying the evidence? Here is a case where an exception should have been made. Instead they violate the Securities Act and grandfather the fails for the criminals and make more room for abuse with the OMM exemption. When the regulator is this inept or corrupt, it is a blessing to have energetic people who hold them accountable.

Deus thinks that this is going to happen.. A.N is going to be fired from her new job as a pole dancer at Cheetah's... When told that all of her customers wanted their money back, she said, "They are just mad because their stalks didn't go up!"
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/3/2007 7:44 PM
Mary: I stopped writing Symphony when I realized that the simplest answer, given the history of the commission and the more important recent history, was that the SEC was a PR agency designed to lull the public into believing that the markets were regulated, and which also was a facilitator for the big Wall Street entities (and often used to take down pretenders to the Wall Street throne, like Milken). Once you understood that critical piece of information, it all fell into place, and you understood it all. Wrist slaps for multiple felonies by the big guys, actions against upstarts and unpopular competitors, burying companies while predators won big, ignoring the act that created it while making ever more egregious steps to dismantle the protections emanating from the Pecora hearings....all of it made sense if you just understood what the SEC was actually designed to do, and not to do.

The confusion comes in if you naively believe that the SEC is set up to protect investors and issuers from the predators of Wall Street. That's the disconnect. It's sort of like when the government tells you it is going to protect you by removing most of your liberties, and require you to get their permission to travel, or send money abroad, or carry cash, or do most anything the government doesn't want you doing. If you believe it is going to protect you, you get really confused when it can't, and doesn't. If you correctly understand that it is there to protect the uber-wealthy, and keep the ants dancing and illiterate and buried in debt, then any expectation of it protecting you disappears, and you aren't confused anymore when it engages in activities designed solely to enrich its masters by redistributing your wealth, collected by endless taxation, and endless inflation. You go, ah, but that is what it designed to do. Or at least, that is its current design. Ditto for the SEC.

Seeing the world as it is, versus as you are told it is, is essential.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By otc on 10/4/2007 3:02 PM
Many of the SEC rules are intended to benefit Wallstreet. For example, insiders are not allowed to buy for six months if they sell even one share out of their position (short swing rules).

If someone pulls a certificate of an OTC stock out, they are forbidden from ever depositing it back into most brokerages. If they deposit it into the DTC in electronic format, the other brokerages still won't accept the transfer. They need to punish those that go to paper certificates.

If a company does a financing without going through Wallstreet and paying millions in broker warrants, commissions and prospectus fees, there is a two year hold on the stock. If an investor lifts a restriction after a two year hold (rule 144K), the SEC posts an "intent to sell" of the volume of the cert. No one intends to sell anything, but they are required to lie to investors and say they do.

Everything is designed to paint a picture where everyone is selling (or intending to sell), even insiders won't buy, while starving the company of investment funds.

The easiest way to get investors to buy a stock is to push it down below its intrinsic value. Wallstreet keeps that money, then in partnership with the SEC either starves and pushes down the value of the stock, or extorts huge fees and warrants for Wallstreet.

Did you know that on an IPO, they are allowed to go endlessly naked short because the theory is there is no stock for sale because it is all locked up? Can you imagine being in a position with the only one with supply and being able to counterfeit that supply at will?

Bobo summed it up - the SEC is a PR agency.

Any comments on Annette Nazareth leaving (good riddance)?
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By subprime on 10/4/2007 3:03 PM
This article does a great job of explaining the subprimes and why the Federal Reserve and politicians needed to support counterfeiting to avert a great depression.

http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4288.2525.0.0

They mismarked the rating of subprime bonds as AAA, then foisted them as foreigners. They were able to provide loan guarantees by hedging against the subprime lenders. They knew when the bond market blew up, their profit on their counterfeiting of the subprime shares would cancel their losses on their bond funds, plus they could rely on the taxpayer for bailouts.

"American banks, understanding the risk involved in holding so many chancy (and possibly largely overvalued) subprime mortgages on their own books, decided to get rid of them. But who would want to buy all the risky mortgages? Certainly not Americans who were already maxed out on subprime debt. The answer was foreigners.

But here was the catch. To make the sales profitable, the risky mortgages had to be marketed as a “safe” investment."

Now that they have transferred a huge loss to foreigners, they will allow the dollar to plummet in international exchange while allowing interest rates to soar. They don't care if you lose your house or your retirement savings. It's not their problem.
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By pecora on 10/4/2007 3:03 PM
You never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out - Warren Buffet

"Your predecessors on the Senate Banking Committee, in the celebrated Pecora Hearings of 1933 and 1934, laid the groundwork for the modern edifice of financial regulation. I suspect that they would be appalled at the parallels between the systemic risks of the 1920s and many of the modern practices that have been permitted to seep back in to our financial markets."

http://www.prospect.org//cs/articles;jsessionid=arlTIn7YQ5-ctVxKIv?article=the_alarming_parallels_between_1929_and_2007

"This was the essence of the abuse of public utilities stock pyramids in the 1920s, where multi-layered holding companies allowed securities to be watered down, to the point where the real collateral was worth just a few cents on the dollar, and returns were diverted from operating companies and ratepayers. This only became exposed when the bubble burst. As Warren Buffett famously put it, you never know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out."
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By way to help shorts on 10/4/2007 3:04 PM
I think putting out that article out about Gradient taking this to Supreme Court you stop the momentum and help the shorts... I think you keep hush Bobo and stop helping shorts with that kind of negativity...You had them on the run and you give them ammo...Not very smart
Re: Musings on the market, and of desperate acts for desperate men By bobo on 10/4/2007 3:07 PM
Way to help: Huh? I'm sorry, I didn't realize my role was to "get the shorts on the run." I could care less what shorts do, just as I could care less what longs do. If by shorts, you mean criminal stock manipulators, you too are failing to make any distinction between a legal short seller and a criminal failing to deliver as a trading strategy.

Gee, I'm sure it never occured to Gradient to try every stall in the book to avod being cornholed by guys with badges, and Patrick. And here I am stopping momentum. What momentum? What are you talking about? How are "they" "On the run?"

Your name:
Title:
Comment:
Please limit your comments to 500 characters. For longer comments, use our forums.
Subscribe via Email
Get This Blog via Email:


Powered by Squeet.com
Sanity Check Archive
Resources
Copyright © 2006 The Sanity Check   |  Privacy Statement  |  Terms Of Use