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Reports are coming in that Robinhood, the stock broker app, is forcibly selling shares of GameStop on behalf of some of its users. The transactions cannot be canceled and it is being positioned as mitigating “unreasonable risk” on behalf of the company as well as the investor. Billionaire hedge funds have been taking a huge hit after a Reddit group started buying up GameStop shares in an effort to counter a massive amount of short positions. This prompted a “short squeeze” that sent the stock skyrocketing. As the dominos fell, GameStop reached a high of over $400 dollars per share,...

Are there any other reasons for the short sale of a house besides being underwater, a foreclosure, or some other negative financial situation?

To avoid further clogging the already sluggish home foreclosure pipeline, some lenders have been offering cash incentives to strapped homeowners at risk of foreclosure to complete short sales and move out of their homes. Chase, for instance, has been quietly offering as much as $35,000 to homeowners who are “upside down” on their loans — meaning, they owe more than the home is currently worth. In a short sale, the lender allows the sale of the home for less than the loan amount and often relieves the borrower of any further obligation. The incentives began late last year and are...

CoStar Group, a commercial real estate analytics and marketing firm, sold the building that houses its Washington, D.C., headquarters this week for $101 million, which is a 146% gain on the price the firm paid for it. GLL L-Street 1331, an affiliate of Munich-based GLL Real Estate Partners, bought the 2-year-old building with cash in a deal expected to close later this month. CoStar with more than 1,000 employees will still occupy the majority of 1331 L St. after the sale is complete. The firm will put $15 million in escrow to fund additions and improvements to its space and...

How To Restructure Without Getting Taken

TAMPA - The government launched a new effort on Monday to speed up the time-consuming, often-frustrating process of selling your home if you owe more than it's worth. The Obama administration will give $3,000 for moving expenses to homeowners who complete such a sale—known as a short sale—or agree to turn over the deed of the property to the lender. It's designed for homeowners who are in financial trouble but don't qualify for the administration's $75 billion mortgage modification program. Owners will still lose their homes, but a short sale or deed in lieu of foreclosure doesn't hurt a borrower's...

I recently found a full time job after almost two years of not being able to find one but our home is scheduled to be auctioned in February. I have heard different things and am not sure what to do. My parents, who live out of state, want to buy the house with cash, free and clear, not for them, but for me and the kids so we have a place to live. Is this possible? I have heard realtors say it is forbidden, while others say it could be done. I have not notified the agency who has our...

"Home prices are expected to drop another 20% before hitting bottom, according to economists at A. Gary Shilling & Co., raising the risk that 40% of borrowers will walk away from their home in a strategic default." Homeowners have the RIGHT to not make payments on their home and the banks have the RIGHT to take the home back in that case. If it takes the Banks 1 year to kick the homeowners out of the house, who's fault is that????

60 Minutes Runs Feature On Walking Away From Your Mortgage, And Now EVERYONE Wants To Know How They Can Do It Joe Weisenthal May. 10, 2010, 9:09 AM Did 60 Minutes prompt a big cultural and economic moment last night? The weekly TV news show ran a big feature on strategic defaults, and from what we gather it made strategic defaults look pretty sympathetic. It also acknowledged that it could undermine the recovery.Either way, we know LOTS of folks decided they want in on the action. How do we know? Because all of the sudden we got flooded with search...

U.S. regulators and stock exchange authorities fined Goldman Sachs $450,000 Tuesday for hundreds of violations involving short sales. The Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Stock Exchange Regulation fined the bank for continuing to write naked short sale orders after regulators banned short sales two days after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008, USA Today reported. Short sales are deals in which an investor borrows an asset, then sells it, betting the price will go down. The investor agrees to buy the asset at a later date. If the price drops, the investor makes money. A naked short sale...

As banks shy away from making risky consumer loans, a mediocre credit history just won't cut it anymore. To get the best rates on mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, you need a killer score. Your FICO score is a numerical measure of your creditworthiness that ranges from 300 to 850. While there are a few different credit scoring systems available, it's the FICO score, created by the Fair Isaac Corporation, that most lenders look at when they check your credit. Lenders have already raised their standards by about 20 to 40 points this year, according to Barry Paperno, consumer...

For the borrowers, there is the likelihood of suffering less damage to credit ratings. And as part of the transaction, they will get the lender’s assurance that they will not later be sued for an unpaid mortgage balance.

Goldman Sachs Defends Dark Pools, Short Selling By JOAN E. SOLSMAN Goldman Sachs Group Inc. defended a range of trading practices currently under regulatory scrutiny, including dark pools and short selling, in a report to the Securities and Exchange Commission and a series of posting on its Web site. In defending dark pools, private venues where large blocks of securities are traded anonymously, Goldman said they are simply the result of technology improving on the kind of non-displayed liquidity that has always existed in the market. The firm, which has reaped huge trading profits in the last two quarters, said...

Troubled homeowners may be losing a major lifeline: so-called short sales. To get bad loans off their books and spur home sales, lenders have been forgiving the difference between the outstanding mortgage balance and the purchase price. Banks were never eager participants in short sales, and now financial firms—even those that can offload losses to the government—are balking at such transactions. Some lenders are forcing the sellers to pay extra money at closing. Others want a promissory note for part of the amount due. The situation could be a setback for the already wobbly housing recovery. A record one-third of...

German tycoon Adolf Merckle commits suicide 25 mins ago FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German billionaire Adolf Merckle, assailed by financial turmoil and struggling to salvage his business empire, has killed himself, his family said on Tuesday. "The desperate situation of his companies caused by the financial crisis, the uncertainties of the last few weeks and his powerlessness to act, have broken the passionate family entrepreneur and he took his own life," a family statement said. Prosecutors in the southern German town of Ulm, near Merckle's home, said the 74-year-old died when a train struck him late on Monday. There was no...

HEDGE FUND CHIEF SHORT AND $WEET By TERI BUHL and KAJA WHITEHOUSE Posted: 4:37 am November 9, 2008 Renowned short seller Jim Chanos is emerging as a potential front-runner for this year's prize for top hedge-fund performer. According to performance data obtained by The Post, Chanos' short-only fund, Ursus, is up 53.2 percent through the end of October, besting the 30 percent performance Chanos booked in 2007, when he was ranked one of the top 100 traders. For October alone, the $5 billion fund earned its investors a whopping 17.8 percent. Meanwhile, Chanos' long-short fund, Kynikos International, is up 11.16...

Short-selling on U.S. states can pay off By Mary Williams Walsh Friday, October 3, 2008 While regulators were sprinting to save the financial system last month, someone was making a lot of money — by betting against the State of New Jersey. It is not clear who. But trading records suggest that in the panicked days when exotic derivatives were bringing the American International Group to its knees, traders were using the same kinds of derivatives, called credit-default swaps, to profit from New Jersey's rising tide of red ink. Speculators have long been able to short-sell stocks, making money when...

China gets the bomb Commentary: China will attract money and rumors with initiative By MarketWatch Last update: 3:51 p.m. EDT Sept. 26, 2008Comments: 27 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- American investor Warren Buffett called derivatives weapons of mass destruction. Though some don't consider short sales to be true derivatives, they have been proven to cause some destruction in the U.S. financial markets, if American regulators are to be believed. The practice of selling borrowed stock allegedly put pressure on several U.S. financial firms including Fannie Mae (FNM: 1.83, -0.11, -5.7%) and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ: 0.30, -0.03, -9.0%) after nasty...

WASHINGTON -- The Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule designed to limit certain negative stock bets is set to start Monday. Already, a political backlash is brewing. Last Tuesday, the SEC said it would tighten short-selling rules for 19 financial firms, including mortgage titans Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, by requiring traders to "pre-borrow" stock before initiating a so-called short sale. The SEC said it had concluded "there now exists a substantial threat of sudden and excessive fluctuations of securities prices generally" that could affect orderly markets. Shares in financial stocks on the list soared, in part because of the...

The demise of IndyMac, coming on the heels of Bear Stearns' desperate sale to JPMorgan Chase, is a sure sign of the fragility of today's markets. What's needed now, more than ever, is reliable information for investors and confidence that trading can be conducted without the illegal influence of manipulation.Because financial institutions depend on confidence, they are uniquely vulnerable in the current climate. A "run on the bank" can take hold quickly, and can be fatal. But stampedes are not always rational. When an irrational panic is fueled by a sense of urgency, false rumors that must be acted on...