Posted on 07/27/2008 10:12:33 PM PDT by Fred
Wall Street executives expect the Securities and Exchange Commission to extend the temporary limits it has placed on short-selling and expand them to cover additional stocks beyond the 19 financial companies it targeted two weeks ago.
The limits are set to expire Tuesday, and executives, lobbyists and hedge-fund representatives of the Managed Funds Association, the biggest hedge-fund industry group, have been talking throughout the weekend, trying to come up with possible approaches to asking the SEC to reconsider expanding the rules, according to people familiar with the talks.
A call with regulators on Friday gave the funds group "a fair degree of certainty" that the SEC intends to seek an extension of the emergency period, these people said. Regulators said an extension could be for as short as 60 days and could involve insurance, housing-industry and a broader range of financial stocks, according to these people. SEC Chairman Christopher Cox indicated last week the rules might be extended to all stocks.
In a short sale, a trader sells borrowed stock in a bet the price will decline and the stock can be profitably repurchased at a lower price. The new rules require specific arrangements to borrow shares in short sales rather than the existing rules, which allow a looser assurance the shares can be located.
The rules appear to have had their intended effect of halting the slide in shares of financial companies such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Combined with falling oil prices and encouraging earnings reports from some banks, shares in some of these names have doubled.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
True, but conspiracy theories are more fun!
Self ping
Where did I allege that? I didn't. You made that up as evidenced by your lack of a quote from me and resorted to name-calling because you don't have an intelligent response.
Unfortunately the boring truth is that you're just not that smart. You've picked your villain solely because you think it's unlikely they'll be defended, and it's easy for most people to blame "the rich guy".
Wrong. You don't have an intelligent response because you're not very smart and/or too lazy to provide a thoughtful response.
You're just one more conspiracy theory hack whose world view needs a villain, and you've picked hedge funds. You don't really know the first thing about hedge funds, but that doesn't stop you from alleging that they're "above the law" .
You're the one making baseless allegations. You have no idea about what I know or don't know about hedge funds. As for hedge funds being above the law, they're above the law in the same way a police officer doesn't have to worry about getting a speeding ticket. Billions in assets provides tremendous power and leverage and political juice, which is the reason the SEC gave for not pursuing an investigation of John Mack and firing Gary Aguire.
Unfortunately the boring truth is that you're just not that smart. You've picked your villain solely because you think it's unlikely they'll be defended, and it's easy for most people to blame "the rich guy".
More baseless allegations from a boring, name-calling hack that is too stupid and/or lazy to come up with a thoughtful response.
LOL. How true!
I strongly disagree with your contention about SOME, not all, hedge funds. It is not just money that they wield, it is info warfare, rumor spreading in chat rooms, and access to various press outlets, some of them very high end. Also, hedge funds often act in collusion. They may not be able to crush IBM or any large cap stock, but they can obliterate weaker stocks. Now you could say that small companies, especially those developing products with nothing to sell yet, do not have cashflow or strong balance sheets or even profits to speak of. And you could say that those companies deserve to be crushed if they aren’t making money, and there’s something to that argument. No, predatory hedge funds can’t destroy a JNJ or PG but they can mash much smaller companies.
You’re right that a hedge fund player cannot move “the market” if you mean the whole market, but smallish segments of the market can, and have been ravaged by some of these folks and their tactics, yielding masive profits for da boyz who can pull it off.
Another guy who doesn't know anything about hedge funds.
I've worked in the hedge fund industry for the last 15 years. The 3 hedge funds I've worked for have all been in the "above 10 Billion" size range, and none of them have ever done any of the things you conspiracy theory guys allege.
There is no collusion... that's just silly. But I know my explaining it to you won't be enough to convince you. You'll go on seeing monsters under your bed no matter what the truth is.
Glad you know everything. You talk like you do. You know about 3 hedge funds. Did you know there are over 10,000 of them in the Caymens alone? Did you know UBS is under SEC investigation because they abetted offshoe transaction avoid taxes? I guess that’s simply impossible because no hedge fund you ever worked for did that. To your knowledge.
I guess Cramer admitting he deliberately fed misinformation on a routine basis through Herb Greenberg on CNBC deosn’t mean anything. He’s of course lying because he just wants to throw all us conspiracy guys off. I guess the entries on Rockers’ time sheets showing time spent on behalf of Milberg Weiss mean nothing. You know, the guy in the Federal pen. You know better.
You’re not just a schmuck, you’re an instrutor.
I hear a guy who does the same thing that you do for a living once killed a guy. I guess that makes all the guys who do whatever it is you do into murderers.
Seriously ... go get a life.
“I hear a guy who does the same thing that you do for a living once killed a guy. I guess that makes all the guys who do whatever it is you do into murderers.”
Thanks for showing me how ignorant of reality you are. You really do know everything, don’t you? You really know every deal that every hedge fund ever did. You’re a god, man! You don’t know what I do, but that doesn’t stop you from saying something you just made up about whatever it is you think I do? Evidence wise that would stand up soundly against actual recorded video and audio, written evidence, articles such as:
Cayman-registered hedge funds rise to over 10,000
Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:15pm EDT
NEW YORK, July 28 (Reuters) - The number of hedge funds registered in the Cayman Islands exceeded 10,000 in June for the first time, another indication that the hedge fund industry continues to grow despite market turmoil, Cayman authorities said on Monday.
At the end of June, there were 10,037 hedge funds and fund-of-hedge-funds registered in the offshore tax haven, up from 9,413 at the end of 2007, according to the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA).
U.S. and European hedge funds register in the Cayman Islands to attract global investors, as it is often more tax efficient for them to invest through offshore locations than to invest directly in a domestic hedge fund.
There are more hedge funds domiciled in the Caymans than in any other jurisdiction, including competitors British Virgin Islands and Bermuda, and CIMA has been pushing to maintain that lead.
....all the managers of which you know, right?
And Cramer, who said:
“We’ve been on a crusade on this show…it’s a crusade to bring back honest short-sellers…Right now hedge funds, if they don’t like a stock, can just attack it by calling brokers and punishing the stocks, blitzing them down [by selling stock that they have not borrowed – naked short-selling].”
And you could go here: http://www.deepcapture.com/ and see Cramer talk about how important it was that he got through to folks in the media when he was short and wanted to tank a stock. Take your pick, 5 or 6 videos.
Or from Bloomberg: “How deep is this problem? Bloomberg writes that the “Securities Transfer Association, a trade group for stock transfer agents, reviewed 341 shareholder votes in corporate contests in 2005. It found evidence of overvoting-the submission of too many ballots-in all 341 cases.” Bloomberg suggests that that this is not innocent, but that arbitrageurs have discovered and are exploiting this crack. As one source notes, “It appears to be the case where there are opportunities to game the system.” Bloomberg concludes that until these problems are fixed, “double and triple voting on one share will continue to make a mockery of shareholder democracy.”
that’s bloombergconspiracynutbars.com by the way.
from secwhackjob.com:
SEC economist Leslie Boni analyzed the FTD problem, and her report describes FTD’s as “pervasive,” calculates that the average persistence of failures is 56 trading days, that some go on for much longer, and that these failures are not random but strategic. Bradley Abelow, a former DTCC director questioned under oath for confirmation as New Jersey Treasurer, reluctantly described settlement failures within our system as “occur[ing] as a matter of course with great regularity,” adding “fails to deliver of securities is endemic.” The SEC’s own website, in a section on Regulation SHO explaining why in January 2005 they grandfathered all failed deliveries, reads, “The grandfathering provisions of Regulation SHO were adopted because the Commission was concerned about creating volatility where there were large pre-existing open positions” (those would be the same “large pre-existing open positions” they elsewhere assure us do not exist).
July 15, 2008: First came the stunning announcement that the SEC has sent subpoenas to 50 hedge fund managers as part of a major investigation into rumor-mongering and illegal short-selling of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Then came the even more remarkable announcement from SEC Chairman Christopher Cox that he is instituting an “emergency action” requiring traders to pre-borrow stock before shorting all “substantial” financial companies.
So, you’re right. None of this stuff goes on at all.
It’s a free market right? Quit complaining, just pay my price and your kid can live...
You tell me. What is the right thing to do?”
you’re talking about medicine to stay alive. my point about market and business is that oil is considered a “commodity” in the futures market, here and worldwide, as are corn, wheat, sugar, minerals, currency and many, many other things along that line.
It’s tragic that we’re so dependent on, and such vast consumers of, foreign oil - our own fault. AND, we can thank the Democrats in the Senate (Harry Reid, specifically) this past week for their disgraceful refusal to approve harvesting our IMMENSE domestic resources of oil, oil shale, coal (which would yield about 3 times the fuel source as Saudi Arabia), pursuing natural gas, nuclear power, etc. - anything. They’ve put their hatred of Bush above the good (and desperate need) of the American people.
We have untold resources here in the U.S., a lot of which could be brought up and used by us within 1-2 years. The ultimate blame goes to many, many people in power on both sides over the last decades.
But the comparison to insulin or other life-saving drug, I can’t agree with - sorry, respectfully.
Naked shorting is illegal but the SEC does NOTHING about it.
You tell me. What is the right thing to do?”
P.S. to that - MY idea of “the right thing to do” is to do what’s right for the American people regarding freeing ourselves of foreign oil - and don’t take my word for it - listen to T. Boone Pickens, a billionaire oil man who spoke to congress last week and concluded by saying that he’s an American first, and an oil man second - he said do anything and everything to get away from foreign oil as quickly as possible - aggressively explore ALL sources and alternative energy sources. He’s totally non-partisan and rightly said that this is SO much bigger than politics. (At least it should be). He’s spent many millions of his own money to get the word out to the country on this, and hours laying out his energy plan to congress.
It’s up to us, and NOT blaming the big bad investors and speculators. In fact, what we do greatly affects what THEY do, with overnight evidence at the pump. I’ve been tracking gas pump prices every day since GW publicly announced lifing the executive ban on offshore drilling. Prices have gone down every day, and since he did that a week ago last wednesday, here in kansas city, as of today, gas is down a whopping 38 cents a gallon - in only 12 days. When I checked last week, already oil had gone down over $20 a barrel, a decrease of over 11%. Now, if congress/senate would work together to agree seriously to support the effort, we’d see the price at the pump drop much more dramatically. Immediately.
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