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Article: Inside Billionaire Steve Cohen’s Comeback

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Inside Billionaire Steve Cohen’s Comeback

In 2013, an insider-trading scandal brought down his hugely successful hedge fund. In his first interview about the firm since then, Cohen tells Fortune how he’s rebuilding for redemption.

On the night of Jan. 8, 2016, Steven A. Cohen walked into a steak house just east of Times Square. It was Friday, and the stock market had just closed out a brutally bloody first week of the year. But no matter: This was Exoneration Day, according to Cohen’s friend and former investor Anthony Scaramucci, and they were celebrating.

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Article: FINRA Merrill’s system failures produced millions of inaccurate trading records

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FINRA: Merrill’s system failures produced millions of inaccurate trading records

Kenneth Corbin

OnWallStreet, 19 October 2016

Staffers at FINRA’s Department of Market Regulation identified a number of reporting errors in the data Merrill submitted to FINRA’s Order Audit Trail System, or OATS, and cited the firm for failures relating to its supervision practices and its maintenance of books and records.

In a statement announcing the settlement, Thomas Gira, executive vice president and head of market regulation at FINRA, notes the importance of maintaining accurate data through the OATS market-surveillance program to detect signs of market manipulation and other irregularities.

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Article: FINRA fines Merrill Lynch $2.8 million for reporting violations

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FINRA fines Merrill Lynch $2.8 million for reporting violations

Elizabeth Dilts

Reuters, 18 October 2016

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority fined Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch $2.8 million on Tuesday for what it called systemic violations in record-keeping and how the firm reported trades and order audit trail system data.

The allegations involve trade and order audit data that brokerages submit to FINRA, and which the regulator uses to detect, among other things, possible market manipulation.

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Article: MARC COHODES – INTERTAIN GROUP LTD: A HOUSE OF CARDS

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MARC COHODES – INTERTAIN GROUP LTD: A HOUSE OF CARDS

ValueWalk, 18 October 2016

In early 2014, Intertain was created with assets from Amaya Inc., with Amaya becoming Intertain’s largest shareholder David Baazov – Amaya’s CEO – has been charged with insider trading by the Quebec AMF
AMP claims that Baazov was part of a network of insiders who used secret codes to conceal trades about companies planning to merge or acquire other companies. John Fitzgerald (also known as “Fitzy”) was named CEO of Intertain. Fitzy has allegedly been involved with penny stock promoters and has previously been named as a defendant in shareholder lawsuits.

Keith Laslop was named CFO of Intertain Laslop has links to Gerova Financial Group, whose top officers (John Galanis et al) were by the SEC for fraud. Laslop himself was named in multiple lawsuit arising out of the Gerova fraud allegations. Intertain’s roll up strategy. In early 2015, Intertain acquired Jackpotjoy and other companies for £4258 million plus earn-outs if and when Jackpotjoy meets earnings benchmarks
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Article: High-profile short-seller takes aim at five Canadian companies

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High-profile short-seller takes aim at five Canadian companies
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LUKE KAWA, 05 October 2016

Twenty five minutes into a profanity-ridden presentation at Jim Grant’s Fall 2016 Investing Conference in New York City, Marc Cohodes paused his speech to don a red jacket emblazoned with a maple leaf on the right breast.

So attired, the short seller proceeded to launch into his bearish theses for the collection of Canadian companies he’s betting against.

Mr. Cohodes, the former managing general partner at Copper River Management and current chicken farmer at Alder Lane Farm in California, revisited the cases for why he’s short Valeant Pharmaceuticals Inc., The Intertain Group Ltd., Concordia International Corp., and Home Capital Group Inc.

At the conference on Tuesday, he unveiled a short position in Equitable Group Inc., a Toronto-based provider of mortgage financing. The company disputes Mr. Cohodes’s claims about its vulnerabilities.
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Article: Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge

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Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge

Tyler Durden, 01 October 2016

For Deutsche Bank, when it rains, it pours, even when everyone tries to come to its rescue.

One day after its stock soared from all time lows, following what so far appears to have been a fabricated report sourced by AFP which relied on Twitter as a source that the DOJ would reduce its RMBS settlement amount with Deutsche Bank from $14 billion to below $6 billion (and which neither the DOJ nor Deutsche Bank have confirmed for obvious reasons), moments ago Bloomberg reported that six current and former managers of Deutsche Bank, including Michele Faissola, Michele Foresti and Ivor Dunbar, were charged in Milan for colluding to falsify the accounts of Italy’s third-biggest bank, Monte Paschi (which itself is so insolvent it is currently scrambling to finalize a private sector bailout) and manipulate the market. Two former executives at Nomura Holdings Inc. and five at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena were also charged. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank Charged By Italy For Market Manipulation, Creating False Accounts | Zero Hedge”

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Article: A Family Affair At Home Capital Group: Did Re-Charge Just Open Pandora’s Box?

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A Family Affair At Home Capital Group: Did Re-Charge Just Open Pandora’s Box?

The Friendly Bear, 29 September 2016

We published a report on August 23rd exposing a peculiar relationship between Home Capital Group (OTCPK:HMCBF) (HCG.TO) and a previously undisclosed mortgage company called Re-Charge. In response to our report, Home Capital Group put out a press release making a series of claims that downplayed the significance of Re-Charge. Some of the main claims in the press release were as follows:

That “in the normal course of its business, HCG from time to time sells loans to third parties, when loans require work-outs or restructuring.” That “loans sold to all third parties since 2013 totaled less than $125 million” in the context of a “current on-balance sheet total loans portfolio of $18.1 billion.” That “Home Trust has not sold any loans requiring work-out or restructuring to any third party, including Re-Charge Corporation, since September 2015.”
Continue reading “Article: A Family Affair At Home Capital Group: Did Re-Charge Just Open Pandora’s Box?”

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Article: David Dayen Series on Naked Short Selling

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David Dayen, a persistent chronicler of how oligarchs exploit the financial system to enrich themselves at the expense of others, writes about Chris DiIorio, a stock analyst who for 10 years has obsessively investigated how exactly he came to lose $1 million on one penny stock. A remarkable story ensues.  All article in The Intercept.

The Money is Gone (22 September 2016)

Big Players, Little Stocks, and Naked Shorts (23 September 2016)

Naked Shorts Can’t Stay Naked Forever (24 September 2016)

Calling the SEC (25 September 2016)

Turning Up Like A Bad Penny (26 September 2016)

Were Paper Losses the Goal All Along (27 September 2016)

The Half Billion Glitch (28 September 2016)

 

 

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Article: GOLDMAN SACHS NZ TRADING UNDER SCRUTINY IN MARKET MANIPULATION TRIAL

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GOLDMAN SACHS NZ TRADING UNDER SCRUTINY IN MARKET MANIPULATION TRIAL

BusinessDesk, 26 September 2016

Trading by Goldman Sachs has come under the scrutiny of lawyers representing Milford Asset Management portfolio fund manager Mark Warminger in a High Court trial on market manipulation.

Duncan Rutherford, who headed Goldman’s securities team in New Zealand until it was restructured earlier this year, was giving evidence today as part of the first week of the Auckland trial brought by the market regulator, the Financial Markets Authority.

Warminger is accused of making trades on 10 occasions that breached securities law prohibiting trading that is not for a genuine commercial purpose and creates an artificial appearance in the market.

The first cause of action brought by the FMA relates to trading in Fisher & Paykel Healthcare shares on May 27, 2014, where Warminger is said to have bought shares to push up the price of the stock from its opening price of $4.32 to $4.35 through five small buy trades and then later selling 500,000 shares at an allegedly manipulated higher price off-market.

Warminger’s counsel Marc Corlett QC questioned why Goldman Sachs also sold shares in F&P Healthcare in the market’s opening auction that day – 15,000 shares at $4.32 and then 10,000 at $4.33 even though it was “short” in its own facilitation account of 463,000 shares. The firm made a loss on the trades. The stock price had been volatile closing at $4.35 the previous day and in the “4.20s” the day before that.

Rutherford said it wasn’t unusual for the firm to do that given the “bigger picture” of its trading strategy for that day and the commissions it received on trading activity. It also did so in the belief Warminger would be a potential seller that day, he said.

The idea of the facilitation account is not simply to make profits on the shares it trades, he said, but it was part of a suite of services it offered clients and acted like a “bucket” that facilitated trades between clients and increased liquidity on the often volatile New Zealand market.

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Article: BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS

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BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS

David Dayen, 23 September 2016

CHRIS DIIORIO HAD lost a million dollars when the penny stock he was betting on shed 98 percent of its value in a matter of weeks. But when he looked deeper, he found this wasn’t a typical penny stock pump-and-dump scheme. He was determined to get to the bottom of it.

For one thing, there were two huge companies involved. Continue reading “Article: BIG PLAYERS, LITTLE STOCKS, AND NAKED SHORTS”

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Article: Kerrisdale Analysis On First Majestic: A Critical Review

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Kerrisdale Analysis On First Majestic: A Critical Review

The Critical Investor, 16 September 2016

First Majestic Silver Corp. (NYSE: AG , TSX:FR), a large silver producer, took an 8% hit on September 1, 2016 right after opening, after a shorting report was published by the shorting hedge fund Kerrisdale Capital Management on my longtime platform for writing investment analysis, Seeking Alpha. I’m not really into producers as I focus predominantly on juniors, but this analysis was all over the internet and quickly got on my radar.

The first thing that piqued my curiosity, before even reading the piece, was the chart, to see what the impact would be, a few hours after opening at the time. To my surprise, First Majestic already started recovering after the initial sell-off. Even more surprisingly, looking a bit further, the stock appeared to have lost already 32-33% since the peak a few weeks ago, even before the Kerrisdale analysis was published. This was due to a sector-wide correction on lower precious metal prices, in turn caused by Fed rate hike rumours:
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Article: Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit

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Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit

Tom DiChristopher, 13 September 2016

Short seller Jim Chanos on Tuesday said he is still short shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals, and he’s not about to close out his bet against the drug company anytime soon.

“We started shorting the stock in the low $100s, added to it in the $200s, choked on it at $290 but stayed short and added to the stock as recently as early this year,” the Kynikos Associates founder told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” on the sidelines of the Delivering Alpha conference in New York. Continue reading “Article: Jim Chanos: I’m still short Valeant and not about to quit”

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Article: Kerrisdale declares short position in First Majestic Silver

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Kerrisdale declares short position in First Majestic Silver

HENRY LAZENBY, 01 September 2016

Hedge fund firm Kerrisdale Capital has declared short positions in and own option interests on the stock of Canadian primary silver producer First Majestic Silver. Kerrisdale on Thursday published a report highlighting its belief that the miner was in a “speculative frenzy” and that the company’s valuation was “outrageously detached from reality”.

The New York-based hedge fund firm argued that First Majestic’s stock price could fall between 70% to 80% from its Thursday opening price of $12.02 apiece.

According to Kerrisdale’s latest 13F filing, its US equity portfolio was worth almost $370-million at the end of June, 36.86% less than it was worth at the end of March. The fund, which has staked its bets on a rebound in the technology sector, struggled during the first half of the year, losing 12.1% during the period, compared with the S&P 500 ending the first half with gains of 3.8%.
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Article: First Majestic Silver Has 80% Downside: Kerrisdale’s Latest Short Report

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First Majestic Silver Has 80% Downside: Kerrisdale’s Latest Short Report

Jayson Derrick, 01 September 2016

First Majestic Silver Corp AG 0.03% , a mining company that focuses on silver production, exploration, and development in Mexico is an “absurdly overvalued”, “heavily promoted” stock that has been driven by a “speculative frenzy,” according to Kerrisdale Capital.

Kerrisdale Capital began its short thesis on First Majestic by pointing out that like all mining companies, First Majestic’s stock price is obviously tied to the commodity it explores. The company’s stock fell 90 percent from the peak of the silver market in 2011 to recent lows. On the other hand, the stock seems to have “gotten a new lease on life” and surged 268 percent since the start of the year, marking an increase eight times larger than the actual gains silver notched.

As such, Kerrisdale estimates the stock is now trading at 5x its net asset value, which marks an “astonishing” premium to its peers and a “gross violation of common sense.”
Continue reading “Article: First Majestic Silver Has 80% Downside: Kerrisdale’s Latest Short Report”