May 2018 – Financial Treason & Crime

05/31/201802/25/2021

Article: It’s happening again: FSD Pharma (HUGE.C) is an insider loaded, overvalued, restrictive mess

It’s happening again: FSD Pharma (HUGE.C) is an insider loaded, overvalued, restrictive mess

CHRIS PARRY, 31 May 2018

What the hell is in the vodka on Howe Street that all of a sudden every new weed deal is coming out tied in knots that enrich the core crew at the expense of everyone else? We’ve spent three days shining a light on MedMen’s (MMEN.C) terrible go-public structure, which enriches execs at the expense of the company and shareholders, and showers them in bonuses every month, a situation that has led to around $400 million in market cap disintegrating over the last few days. Sure, In Vancouver we’re used to deals where insiders are loaded with literal penny (or ha’penny) stock before they even announce what’s going into their shell, and we know that’s one of the costs of doing business on the Venture Exchange – that those early guys will blow their cheap paper out and the company will face pressure as a result.
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05/06/201803/01/2021

Article: A Bull Market in Stock Bashing and 12 Stories from New Cannabis Ventures

Article - Media, Publications

A Bull Market in Stock Bashing and 12 Stories from New Cannabis Ventures

Alan Brochstein, 06 May 2018

With so much interest in the the cannabis sector, we have noticed an increase in the number of bearish pieces on publicly-traded companies on platforms like Seeking Alpha. This week, for instance, an article called for an 80% decline in Namaste Technologies. The same writer, “Grumpy Bear Research”, took a shot at Isodiol International in the prior week. Many of the leading LPs in Canada have been the subject of these attacks as well, including, most recently, Aphria.

We aren’t going to weigh in on the validity of the arguments made or our views of these companies, but we do want to discuss the bigger picture. Many, though certainly not all, of these articles are very well researched and bring out information that is new to many investors in the company, often a reflection of the lack of due diligence done by retail investors and the void in negative research published by the Canadian investment banking firms that cover the space.
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05/01/201803/21/2021

Article: Goldman Sachs Fined $110 Million to Settle New York FX Probe

Article - Media, Publications

Goldman Sachs Fined $110 Million to Settle New York FX Probe

Aziz Abdel-Qader, 01 May 2018

Goldman Sachs has been slapped with a $110 million fine by New York regulator and Federal Reserve in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that the bank’s traders routinely manipulated the forex market for their profit.

New York’s Department of Financial Services also ordered the investment bank to put in place a program to ensure that the alleged violation doesn’t happen again. However, Goldman is not required to hire an outside consultant to review its practices, a condition sometimes imposed on banks fined for compliance violations.

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The DFS said Goldman Sachs had insufficient oversight and controls over its FX traders, who allegedly discussed trading positions with competitors, using electronic chatrooms. The traders frequently tried to trade ahead of big foreign-exchange transactions by their clients, a practice known as front-running.

The order released Tuesday detailed multiple instances of improper behavior, which occurred from at least 2008 to 2015.

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