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Release: Explains Illegal Naked Shorting Being Perpetrated By Major Market Makers on MAXD Shares

Release

Explains Illegal Naked Shorting Being Perpetrated By Major Market Makers on MAXD Shares

8,117,878,650 shares shorted in the past year, which is more than 40% of MAXD’s total trading volume

We have analyzed the last year of daily short volume data and correlated it to recent market making activity in MAXD.  In 27 of the past 31 trading days, 87% of the time, the combined selling and short selling in MAXD has far exceeded the amount of buying (See NetNet column below).  Market makers, by definition, are required to PROVIDE LIQUIDITY not extract or remove liquidity. The math provided below demonstrates that instead of matching orders, market makers, Knight/Virtu, Cantor Fitzgerald, Canaccord Genuity, Citadel, eTrade/G1 are heavily shorting MAXD stock BOTH on the offer and on the bid, which by definition means they have a “speculative short selling strategy” running on MAXD. They are carrying net short positions overnight and continuing to claim the market maker’s exemption, which is in VIOLATION of the Fair Market Making Requirements of Regulation SHO.  We are able to mathematically prove this because there is not enough BuyVol (buy volume) to match the amount of selling and short selling. The chart below identifies the top 5 market makers, in MAXD for May 2018 (highlighted below) accounting for 2,257,870,595 shares of trading, or 88.22% of total trading volume in May.

Total Volume   Name
(Last Month)

643,662,180    Knight/Virtu,
154,447,100    Cantor Fitzgerald,
203,762,081    Canaccord Genuity,
769,731,954    Citadel,
247,276,817    Trade/G1

As is common during these orchestrated short selling campaigns, bad actors with no real interest in MAXD’s success, or any small public company for that matter, has consistently engaged in false accusations and libel on the Company’s stock chat boards in attempts to scare and demoralize MAXD’s legitimate shareholders. It is noteworthy that as soon as Max Sound sent this report to the market makers perpetrating the naked short sales on the company, the bad actors disappeared at least for the time being.

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Article: Brazil watchdog fines Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada for forex manipulation

Article - Media

Brazil watchdog fines Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada for forex manipulation

Bruno Federowski, Richard Chang

Reuters, 13 June 2018

Brazil’s antitrust watchdog on Wednesday fined Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Royal Bank of Canada (RY.TO) a total of 42.9 million reais ($11.6 million) for meddling with foreign exchange rates charged to clients.

The board of regulator Cade unanimously approved a proposal to fine Morgan Stanley 30.280 million reais and RBC 12.586 million reais.

Read full article.

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Article: Market manipulation caused surge in prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, researchers say

Article - Media, Publications

Market manipulation caused surge in prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, researchers say

DUNCAN RILEY, 13 June 2018

A new research paper has confirmed long-held suspicions that the Tether cryptocurrency was used by people linked to the Bitfinex exchange to drive up the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies last year.

The paper, written by University of Texas Professor John Griffin, who is known for catching fraud in financial markets, and graduate student Amin Shams, details the direct relationship between the issuing of Tether during bitcoin price drops and how it was used to buy bitcoin on the drop, artificially creating demand and driving the price up. Continue reading “Article: Market manipulation caused surge in prices of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, researchers say”

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Article: A Vor Never Sleeps

Article - Media, Publications

A Vor Never Sleeps

Razhden Shulaya maintained a diverse business empire, like a Warren Buffet of crime. By age 40, from his base in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, he had a cigarette smuggling operation, a drug ring, a counterfeit credit card scheme, an extortion racket, an illegal gambling establishment, and teams devoted to hacking slot machines.

According to prosecutors who have been building a case against him, Shulaya’s associates provided gun-running, kidnap-for-hire, and the fencing of stolen jewelry. Plans were in place for what authorities came to call the “romance scam”: use an attractive woman to lure a target down to Atlantic City, knock him out with chloroform, and steal his money. They’d take his Rolex, too.

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

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

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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.
Continue reading “Article: A Bull Market in Stock Bashing and 12 Stories from New Cannabis Ventures”

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

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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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Article: Jim Chanos: Bet Against Dunkin’ Brands, Burger King

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Jim Chanos: Bet Against Dunkin’ Brands, Burger King

F McGuire, 26 April 2018

Investment guru Jim Chanos is betting against Dunkin’ Brands and Burger King’s parent. Chanos told CNBC that he has been shorting fast-food stocks Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. and Burger King’s parent Restaurant Brands International Inc. “for about a year.”

The founder and president of Kynikos Associates said in a “Squawk Box” interview that he’s shorting Dunkin’ Brands and Burger King’s parent Restaurant Brands International. “We’ve been short these things for about a year,” said Chanos. Chanos said price-to-earnings ratios for restaurant stocks have been going “higher, higher and higher as restaurants themselves have struggled.”

“At some point, that has to come to an end,” he said. “This is part of a broader theme … the franchisers versus the franchisees,” Chanos said. He said he doesn’t like what he calls “this asset-light idea” of these companies not owning their restaurants while “basically clipping the coupons, collecting royalties” from the franchises, CNBC.com reported.
Continue reading “Article: Jim Chanos: Bet Against Dunkin’ Brands, Burger King”

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Article: Why Famed Short-Seller Jim Chanos Is Betting Against Burger King And Dunkin’ But Praising Chipotle

Article - Media, Publications

Why Famed Short-Seller Jim Chanos Is Betting Against Burger King And Dunkin’ But Praising Chipotle

Maggie McGrath, 26 April 2018

The tale of two restaurant ownership models — wholly-owned and franchised — is translating into similarly divergent market performances for certain restaurant stocks Thursday. And much of the movement has to do with the comments of one short-seller.

Shares of Dunkin’ Brands and Restaurant Brands International (QSR), which is Burger King’s parent company, are in negative territory after Jim Chanos, the investor who famously shorted Enron, told CNBC Thursday morning that he’s taken short positions in both names. His reason: he is not optimistic about the future of asset-light, franchise-focused businesses. “[E]verybody wants to sell the restaurants and not own them but basically clip the coupon of collecting royalties,” he said. “And we’ve had this dichotomy now of restaurant stock multiples going higher and higher and higher as restaurants themselves have struggled. I think at some point that has to come to an end.”
Continue reading “Article: Why Famed Short-Seller Jim Chanos Is Betting Against Burger King And Dunkin’ But Praising Chipotle”

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Article: Ex-UBS trader beats market manipulation charge

Article - Media, Publications

Ex-UBS trader beats market manipulation charge

New York (AFP), 25 April 2018

Former UBS precious metals trader Andre Flotron was acquitted on Wednesday of market manipulation, a development that could spell trouble for similar cases against other Wall Street traders.

Authorities arrested Flotron late last year on charges he engaged in a Wall Street practice called “spoofing,” which involves placing and then immediately aborting trades to move prices. The acquittal follows January’s $46.6 million settlement with UBS, Deutsche Bank and HSBC over allegations traders at the banks worked to manipulate futures markets in precious metals between 2008 and early 2014.

Before this case, only three other people had ever been charged with “spoofing,” according to the Justice Department, a practice banned under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform legislation. Continue reading “Article: Ex-UBS trader beats market manipulation charge”

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Article: Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world

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Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world

Sara Hess & Eugene Soltes, 25 April 2018

Sergei Mavrodi, creator of one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history, died last month at age 62, potentially leaving millions of “investors” in countries around the world in the lurch. Beginning around the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Moscow-born Mavrodi’s exploits expanded and evolved over the course of nearly 30 years, putting him in the same league as Bernie Madoff, who operated arguably the biggest such fraud ever, and Charles Ponzi himself, the Italian con artist whose name is now synonymous with this type of financial deception. Continue reading “Article: Russia’s greatest Ponzi mastermind is dead, but his legacy lives on in the crypto world”

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Article: Isodiol International Inc. (ISOLF): $ISOLF news out!

Article - Media, Publications

Isodiol International Inc. (ISOLF): $ISOLF news out!”

stockman69, 25 April 2018

It has come to the attention of Isodiol International Inc. (CSE: ISOL) (OTC: ISOLF) (FSE: LB6A.F) (the “Company” or “Isodiol”) that an anonymous author by the fictitious name “Grumpy Bear” has posted a lengthy article on the website www.seekingalpha.com that is intended to disparage the Company by any means possible. While Isodiol has a general policy of not responding to anonymous media and online postings, this particular article is the first of its kind, has had wide dissemination, and has a misleading air of credibility due to the website where it was posted.

We wish to be clear. The author is not credible, and the article is not credible. The author has written four articles under the Grumpy Bear alias, and each one appears timed to an artificial sell-off in the stock of the target issuer for the benefit of a specific short-selling fund group. There also is evidence that suggests the real people behind the Grumpy Bear alias have engaged in similar tactics for the better part of the last decade under other aliases, two of which have resulted in several hundred million dollar lawsuits against the fund group.
Moreover, the article was not written to journalistic or regulated research analyst standards and has no such integrity. Other than scattered facts with citations to voluntary public disclosures by the Company and certain other limited public information, the article is fiction. The fictional and defamatory nature of the article also is why the true identity of Grumpy Bear is concealed by use of an anonymous third-party e-mail server based in Switzerland. Isodiol intends to pursue all available legal remedies against the author and these artificial short sellers.
Continue reading “Article: Isodiol International Inc. (ISOLF): $ISOLF news out!”

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Article: Isodiol Is MJNA 2.0 – Expect Massive Dilution From Not-So-Arm’s-Length Transactions

Article - Media, Publications

Isodiol Is MJNA 2.0 – Expect Massive Dilution From Not-So-Arm’s-Length Transactions

Grumpy Bear Research, 23 April 2018

During the past few months, Isodiol International Inc. (OTCQB:ISOLF) has seen its stock price rocket up by over 300%, giving it a market capitalization of about CAD$300 million (CAD$424 million fully diluted). The company has the appearance of a rapidly growing business in phytoceuticals (plant-based health supplements) that focused on derivatives of hemp. Hemp is a cousin to the cannabis plant and is a source of non-narcotic cannabidiol (“CBD”), which is used in many nutraceutical products and is presumptively legal throughout the United States.

Revenues have also gone up exponentially at Isodiol in the past year, due largely to a plethora of acquisitions. In fact, the company actually delivered sales of CAD$5.9 million for the quarter ended December 31, 2017, which was an enormous increase over the CAD$3 million of revenue just two quarters ago. While they only eked out a small net profit of CAD$0.2 million, with that kind of revenue growth, the obvious sales pitch is that Isodiol is a rapidly growing company in the red-hot marijuana sector…even though they are not selling marijuana. Isodiol CEO, Marcos Agramont indicated his confidence in the company’s future by stating “We had another strong quarter of revenue growth and will continue our commitment to delivering high-quality hemp-derived CBD products through innovative delivery methods, which is the core of our success”.
Continue reading “Article: Isodiol Is MJNA 2.0 – Expect Massive Dilution From Not-So-Arm’s-Length Transactions”

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Article: CREDIT SUISSE INTERNATIONAL HAS MARKET MANIPULATION LAWSUIT AGAINST IT DISMISSED

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CREDIT SUISSE INTERNATIONAL HAS MARKET MANIPULATION LAWSUIT AGAINST IT DISMISSED

MARIA NIKOLOVA, 26 March 2018

Credit Suisse International (CSI) has had the complaint against it dropped in a case targeting a number of primary dealers of US Treasuries. The order, filed earlier today with the New York Southern District Court, was signed by Judge Paul Gardephe on March 23, 2018.

The order stipulates that CSI is no longer a party in the market manipulation case captioned Breakwater Trading LLC et al v. Bank Of America Corporation et al (1:17-cv-06497). The plaintiffs have voluntarily dismissed all claims against CSI without prejudice to reassert such claims against CSI at a later time should evidence arise in discovery or otherwise that reveals information providing a basis for joining CSI on the claims being litigated in this case. Continue reading “Article: CREDIT SUISSE INTERNATIONAL HAS MARKET MANIPULATION LAWSUIT AGAINST IT DISMISSED”

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Article: This small online retail stock will plunge if Facebook takes its data ‘punch bowl’ away, says short-seller Andrew Left

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This small online retail stock will plunge if Facebook takes its data ‘punch bowl’ away, says short-seller Andrew Left

Thomas Franck, 26 March 2018

Citron Research’s Andrew Left, who’s gained notoriety for successful bets against companies such as Valeant Pharmaceuticals, on Monday posted a new bearish report on Shopify. Shares of Shopify fell more than 3 percent after Left disparaged the relationship between Shopify and Facebook as an “unholy alliance,” based on the exchange of personal information collected by Facebook and sold to Shopify “entrepreneurs.”

Founded in 2004, Shopify’s software helps merchants run their businesses across a variety of platforms, including web, social media storefronts, and brick-and-mortar pop-up shops. It assists merchants in managing products, processing orders and analyzing customer trends.
Continue reading “Article: This small online retail stock will plunge if Facebook takes its data ‘punch bowl’ away, says short-seller Andrew Left”

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