Author: Mia

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Article: NY Insider trading: Bharara is after Steven Cohen, not Mathew Martoma

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NY Insider trading: Bharara is after Steven Cohen, not Mathew Martoma

SUttara Choudhury, 28 November 2012

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has won guilty convictions against high-profile Galleon Group billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, is not resting on his laurels.

Since the crackdown on insider trading began five years ago on Wall Street, there have been more than 70 arrests. Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has won guilty convictions against high-profile Galleon Group billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, is not resting on his laurels. Continue reading “Article: NY Insider trading: Bharara is after Steven Cohen, not Mathew Martoma”

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Article: SAC Capital and Steven Cohen: Insider Trading is a Fog That Haunts Wall Street

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SAC Capital and Steven Cohen: Insider Trading is a Fog That Haunts Wall Street

Here we go again, another insider trading accusation on the heels of the Raj Rajaratnam conviction and sentencing. It involves SAC Capital Advisors and a former employee, Matthew Martoma.

The entire episode is detailed in a New York Times article in Monday’s paper. The allegations of insider trading are very serious and could have ramifications to many more individuals before it is over.

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Article: Insider trading case targets big donor

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Insider trading case targets big donor

Steven A. Cohen, the multibillionaire hedge fund owner implicated in an insider-trading scandal, is a major political donor who has contributed heavily to big players in both parties.

Cohen and his wife, Alexandra, have donated more than $450,000 to the campaign committees and leadership PACs of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and other key lawmakers during the past several election cycles, Federal Election Commission records show.

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Article: EU ban on naked CDS short worries Asian investors

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EU ban on naked CDS short worries Asian investors

Christopher Langner, Christopher Whittall, IFR, 23 October 2012

Some Asian fixed-income investors are grappling with how to hedge high-beta portfolios on the eve of the implementation of a ban on naked shorting of European sovereign CDS.

Until March this year, using European CDS bets to offset potential losses from a drop in prices of Asian high-yield bonds had become a fairly popular strategy. However, since regulators in Europe said they were banning the practice from November 1, many of those bets were unwound. Continue reading “Article: EU ban on naked CDS short worries Asian investors”

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Article: HSBC scandal further erodes credibility of UK banking industry

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HSBC scandal further erodes credibility of UK banking industry

AFP, 22 July 2012

London: A scandal erupting at Europe’s biggest bank HSBC has added to concerns over the state of Britain’s financial sector amid the Barclays rate rigging affair and as the industry faces a major shake-up.

HSBC last week apologised and its head of compliance David Bagley resigned after US lawmakers accused the London-based bank of failing to apply anti-laundering rules, benefitting Iran, terrorists and drug dealers.

The HSBC affair follows hot on the heels of the Libor interest rate rigging scandal that has brought down top executives at Britain’s Barclays bank — most notably its chief executive Bob Diamond and chairman Marcus Agius.

Regulators are reportedly investigating HSBC, as well as Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale, over alleged manipulation of the Libor rate after Barclays was recently fined £290 million (Dh1.66 billion) over the affair.

Britain’s financial regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), has said its Libor probe is looking at seven groups, which are not only British institutions.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King has meanwhile proposed that central bank governors and regulators discuss Libor reform at their upcoming meeting in Basel, Switzerland, on September 9.

Barclays has admitted attempting to manipulate the Libor and Euribor rates between 2005 and 2009.

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Article: Barclays guilty of market manipulation

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Barclays guilty of market manipulation

moneyweek, 27 June 2012

Barclays Bank is to pay a 290 million pound fine following an investigation by UK and US regulators into manipulation of inter-bank lending rates.

The bank’s top executives, including Chief Executive Bob Diamond, have agreed to waive their bonuses this year as a result. City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), said Barclays’ regulation breaches were “serious, widespread and extended over a number of years”.

It accused the bank of having inadequate systems and controls in place until June 2010 and of failing to review its systems and controls at a number of appropriate points. Continue reading “Article: Barclays guilty of market manipulation”

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Article: Watchdog says jury out on CDS short-selling impact

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Watchdog says jury out on CDS short-selling impact

Huw Jones, 18 June 2012

There is no firm proof that short-selling credit default swaps (CDS), blamed by some policymakers for exacerbating Greece’s debt problem, damages the underlying government bond market, the world’s top securities body said.

CDS are contracts written by large banks that insure the buyer against a default in an underlying asset such as a government or corporate bond. Continue reading “Article: Watchdog says jury out on CDS short-selling impact”

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Article: Austria extends naked short ban for some financials

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Austria extends naked short ban for some financials

Reuters Staff, 29 May 2012

VIENNA, May 29 (Reuters) – Austria has extended until Oct. 31 its ban on naked short selling of shares in lenders Erste Group Bank and Raiffeisen Bank International and insurers Vienna and Uniqa, the FMA market watchdog said on Tuesday.

The ban had been set to expire on May 31. Only short-term transactions by market makers or specialists are exempt from the ban.

Short sellers sell borrowed shares in the hope they can be bought back at a lower price. Naked short-selling involves selling shares without first borrowing them.

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Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

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Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis

Charles Ferguson, 20 May 2012

Bernard L Madoff ran the biggest Ponzi scheme in history, operating it for 30 years and causing cash losses of $19.5bn. Shortly after the scheme collapsed and Madoff confessed in 2008, evidence began to surface that for years, major banks had suspected he was a fraud. None of them reported their suspicions to the authorities, and several banks decided to make money from him without, of course, risking any of their own funds. Theories about his fraud varied. Some thought he might have access to insider information. But quite a few thought he was running a Ponzi scheme. Goldman Sachs executives paid a visit to Madoff to see if they should recommend him to clients. A partner later recalled: “Madoff refused to let them do any due diligence on the funds and when asked about the firm’s investment strategy they couldn’t understand it. Goldman not only blacklisted Madoff in the asset management division but banned its brokerage from trading with the firm too.” Continue reading “Article: Heist of the century: Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis”

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Article: Goldman, Merrill E-Mails Show Naked Shorting, Filing Says

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Goldman, Merrill E-Mails Show Naked Shorting, Filing Says

Karen Gullo, 16 May 2012

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Merrill Lynch & Co. employees discussed helping naked short-sales by market-maker clients in e-mails the banks sought to keep secret, including one in which a Merrill official told another to ignore compliance rules, Overstock.com Inc. (OSTK) said in a court filing.

The online retailer accused Merrill, now part of Bank of America Corp., and Goldman Sachs of manipulating its stock from 2005 to 2007, causing its shares to fall. Clearing operations at the banks intentionally failed to locate and deliver borrowed shares for clients shorting stocks, including two traders who were fined and suspended from the industry, Overstock’s attorneys said in court filings earlier this year.

Lawyers for Overstock, whose California state court lawsuit inSan Francisco was dismissed in January, asked a judge to make public e-mails sent in 2005 and 2006 that it said “reflect business decisions to put profits and corporate ambition over compliance” at Goldman Sachs and Merrill. The banks’ decisions to intentionally fail to deliver Overstock shares caused large- scale naked short selling of the company’s stock, according to the filing. Continue reading “Article: Goldman, Merrill E-Mails Show Naked Shorting, Filing Says”

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Article: SEC charges OptionsXpress over naked short selling

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SEC charges OptionsXpress over naked short selling

Reuters Staff, 16 April 2012

April 16 (Reuters) – The online brokerage OptionsXpress and five individuals were charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with involvement in an abusive naked short-selling scheme.

The SEC on Monday said the scheme involved a series of sham transactions, violating a regulation requiring that equity securities be delivered when due.

Four OptionsXpress officers and a customer were charged by the SEC. Three of the officials settled without admitting or denying the regulator’s findings.

The SEC said the misconduct lasted from at least October 2008 to March 2010. Charles Schwab Corp bought OptionsXpress last year.

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Article: “Naked” ban deals further blow to CDS

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“Naked” ban deals further blow to CDS

Christopher Whittall, 04 April 2012

A ban on “naked” sovereign credit defaults swaps trading will be stricter and more far-reaching than market participants had previously thought and could severely damage market liquidity, analysts have warned.

The European Union recently published the final version of new regulation prohibiting participants from using CDS to take outright short positions in sovereigns. The regulation developed in the aftermath of various European politicians blaming sovereign CDS for peripheral bond yields widening during the euro zone crisis, despite a lack of empirical evidence to support these claims.

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Article: Puzzle Pieces Falling Into Place

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Puzzle Pieces Falling Into Place

KEVIN D. FREEMAN, 28 March 2012

It appears that the Copper River Hedge Fund was shorting the market during the fall of 2008. By all accounts, that would be viewed as a profitable market position. And, in hindsight, the stocks sold short did ultimately collapse as the Hedge Fund had expected. However, Copper River did not profit from the declines. Continue reading “Article: Puzzle Pieces Falling Into Place”

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Article: The rise of the Red Mafia in China: A case study of organised crime and corruption in Chongqing

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The rise of the Red Mafia in China: A case study of organised crime and corruption in Chongqing

eng Wang, 20 March 2012

‘Red Mafia’ is the collective term for corrupt public officials in mainland China, mainly from the criminal justice system, who attempt to monopolise the protection business in the criminal underworld by abusing power. In contemporary mainland China, the Red Mafia has developed into an alternative system of governance that can control organised crime groups, enable them to flourish, and protect them where strong government and effective self-protection associations are absent. Continue reading “Article: The rise of the Red Mafia in China: A case study of organised crime and corruption in Chongqing”

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