The Other Side of Stevie Cohen’s Market Manipulation
Smashmouth Investigative Journalism, 02 August 2013
The DOJ showed us they want to turn the world’s most famous hedge fund, SAC Capital, into the most notorious hedge fund when it filed criminal charges against the 1,000 person firm last week. SAC, which stands for Steven A. Cohen its founder, is accused of creating a culture where inside trading was encouraged for over a decade. This means traders who worked under Cohen got non-public material info about a public company and then went long or short the stock–while the rest of main street was clueless. The DOJ filed a long complaint detailing dates and time they think this happen at SAC but the Justice Department missed an element of seediness that happens within the outside hedge funds Stevie Cohen has invested his personal money in.
According to people who have worked within these seeded Cohen funds the alleged scheme works like this. The non-SAC fund hirs young traders anxious to get into a hedge fund and tells them what names to trade in and out of based on fund research. They are given long or short large buy orders and a day or two after the trade is made they watch it fall apart. That’s because according to traders who’ve been part of the transaction Stevie’s just moved into a sizable position against their trade and the edge he has with inside info proves to be the winning trade.
