Free Republic

LOS ANGELES – A former Beverly Hills stockbroker has been sentenced to 72 months in federal prison for scheming to manipulate penny stock prices to inflate the reported profits of his co-conspirator’s hedge funds, generating millions of dollars in fees and commissions for himself, but causing investors to suffer more than $215 million in losses when the funds collapsed.          Todd Michael Ficeto, 53, of Marion, Ohio, was sentenced late Monday by United States District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, who also ordered him to pay $215,815,031 in restitution.          During a 17-day trial that concluded in July 2019, a jury found...

An anti-corruption watchdog group is urging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate top executives at Moderna, the biotech firm developing a promising coronavirus vaccine, for allegedly manipulating the stock market. "This misconduct was particularly egregious because it involved not only financial fraud and manipulation of the financial markets, but also because it exploited widespread fears surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic," wrote Kyle Herrig, who heads Accountable.US, in a letter to the SEC. "I strongly urge the SEC to investigate these matters." The group's concerns center on insider trading activity at Moderna after the company last month announced positive...

Flying home to New Jersey from Chicago after the first two days at his new job, Sergey Aleynikov was prepared for the usual inconveniences: a bumpy ride, a late arrival. He was not expecting Special Agent Michael G. McSwain of the F.B.I. At 9:20 p.m. on July 3, Mr. McSwain arrested Mr. Aleynikov, 39, at Newark Liberty Airport, accusing him of stealing software code from Goldman Sachs, his old employer. At a bail hearing three days later, a federal prosecutor asked that Mr. Aleynikov be held without bond because the code could be used to “unfairly manipulate” stock prices.

An 88-year old commercial real-estate magnate — and Bill Richardson campaign contributor — convicted of embezzling and stock manipulation is among 19 people who received executive clemency this year from New Mexico's outgoing governor. Eddie Gilbert, who in the 1950s was called "the boy wonder of Wall Street," served two prison sentences for crimes committed in New York decades ago. A Richardson spokesman said Wednesday that Richardson's action regarding Gilbert is not an actual pardon...Richardson does not have the power to pardon federal crimes. The governor of New Mexico also doesn't have the power to pardon crimes committed outside the...

ASHINGTON (AP) -- Dissident General Motors Corp. shareholder Kirk Kerkorian appears to be walking away from his quest to shape the future of the troubled automaker. The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported Thursday on its Web site that the billionaire investor sold his entire remaining investment in GM -- 28 million shares -- at $29.95 a share, a transaction worth more than $800 million. The newspaper reported that the shares were sold to Bank of America, a key lender to Kerkorian. Earlier in the day, Kerkorian's investment company, Tracinda Corp., said in a filing...

<p>Pressured by weak stock-market returns and greater competition for investors' money, a growing number of mutual funds are making use of investment strategies typically found in riskier hedge funds.</p> <p>A number of major mutual-fund companies, including Allianz Global Investors, Julius Baer Holding AG's GAM subsidiary, and Alliance Capital Management's AllianceBernstein, have recently asked fund shareholders for permission to change the rules governing how they can invest to include a range of hedge-fund-like investment strategies. Some of the new techniques being adopted include making complex derivative trades, investing with borrowed money and short selling. (Short selling involves selling borrowed shares in order to profit from an expected price decline.) Even some conservative U.S. government bond funds are adding risk with more derivative strategies.</p>

On election day,while the market was way up, before the exit polls were questioned by Fox,someone was shorting the Market.Wonder who?