Cramer: Restore the Uptick Rule
Jeff Benjamin, 23 October 2015
Article: Northwest: Analysis of a Coordinated Short Selling Attack Against the Stock (NWBO, $4.69)
Article - Media, PublicationsNorthwest: Analysis of a Coordinated Short Selling Attack Against the Stock (NWBO, $4.69)
LARRY SMITH, 20 October 2015
Again I can see some people scoffing at my suggestion of such broad based criminal actions but consider the following. Martin Martola of SAC Capital was sentenced to 9 years in prison because he had paid one of the primary investigators in the phase 3 trial of Elan’s bapineuzumab in Alzheimer’s disease to learn of results before they were made publicly available. The clinical trial investigator tipped Martola that the phase 3 trial was unsuccessful and Martola and his employer SAC Capital executed trades that resulted in $275 million of profits. SAC’s founder Steve Cohen was charged with the same crime, but Martola refused to testify against Cohen and he was not indicted. However, SAC made a $1.8 billion settlement for criminal and civil settlements and agreed not to manage outside money. Continue reading “Article: Northwest: Analysis of a Coordinated Short Selling Attack Against the Stock (NWBO, $4.69)”
Web: SEC Responses to Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Regulation SHO
WebSEC Responses to Frequently Asked Questions Concerning Regulation SHO
The following answers to frequently asked questions were prepared by and represent the views of the staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (“Commission”) Division of Trading and Markets (“staff”). They are not rules, regulations, or statements of the Commission, and do not have the approval or disapproval of the Commission.
Article: Steven Cohen returns to London after insider trading claims
Article - Media, PublicationsSteven Cohen returns to London after insider trading claims
Joanna Bourke, 07 October 2015
The US investment firm that oversees billionaire Steven Cohen’s wealth has agreed a deal to return to the UK, its new landlord has said. Two years after closing its London offices amid insider-trading allegations, Point 72 Asset Management will move to St James’s Square in London’s hedge-fund heartland.
The company plans to be operating out of the capital by the first quarter of 2016. It previously employed around 50 people in London. Continue reading “Article: Steven Cohen returns to London after insider trading claims”
Article: Supreme Court to Decide if “Naked” Short Selling State Law Claim May Be Resolved in State Court
Article - Media, PublicationsSupreme Court to Decide if “Naked” Short Selling State Law Claim May Be Resolved in State Court
Lisa Soronen, 21 September 2015
The issue in Merrill Lynch v. Manning is whether state law claims alleging that the “naked” short selling at issue in this case violated state law must be heard in federal court.
In a short sale, a short seller identifies a security he or she believes will decline in value, borrows some of those securities from a broker and sells them. When the securities decline in value he or she rebuys them and makes a profit.
In a “naked” short sale the seller doesn’t borrow the securities in time to deliver them to the buyer—to manipulate the security’s price or to avoid borrowing costs. While “naked” short selling isn’t per se illegal under federal law, some schemes may violate federal antifraud law and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules. Continue reading “Article: Supreme Court to Decide if “Naked” Short Selling State Law Claim May Be Resolved in State Court”
Media: William D. Cohan
Media
William D. Cohan, a former senior Wall Street M&A investment banker for 17 years at Lazard Frères & Co., Merrill Lynch and JPMorganChase, is the New York Times bestselling author of three non-fiction narratives about Wall Street: Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World; House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street; and, The Last Tycoons: The Secret History of Lazard Frères & Co., the winner of the 2007 FT/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
Article: How Wall Street’s Bankers Stayed Out of Jail
Article - MediaArticle: Nine banks to pay $2 billion to US investors in rate-rigging case
Article - MediaNine banks to pay $2 billion to US investors in rate-rigging case
Pinsent Masons, 18 August 2015
Nine of the world’s largest banks have agreed to pay a total of $2 billion in compensation to investors in the US over the manipulation of exchange rates, and to cooperate in litigation against 12 other defendants.
Law firm Hausfeld announced that settlements have been reached with Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, RBS, and UBS on behalf of investors.
The banks will now work with the investors in continuing litigation against Credit Suisse Group, Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse Securities, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank Securities, Morgan Stanley, Morgan Stanley & Co, Morgan Stanley & Co. International, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi., RBC Capital Markets, Société Générale and Standard Chartered. Several of these banks were added to the action last month based on facts found during the investigation, Hausfeld said.
Article: Barclays, RBS and others settle U$2bn currency-rigging lawsuits
Article - Media, PublicationsBarclays, RBS and others settle U$2bn currency-rigging lawsuits
Jonathan Jones, 14 August 2015
HSBC (LON:HSBA), Barclays (LON:BARC), Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) and two other banks settled on yet more payouts for currency-rigging.
The banks settled with US investors, agreeing to a payout which took the overall total paid to the investors to US$2bn (£1.28bn) from nine banks.
US heavyweight Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas also settled.
It’s another round of payouts after six banks, including Barclays and RBS were, in May, ordered to pay US$6bn (£3.84bn) by UK and US authorities.
At the time, Barclays was hit with the biggest bank fine in British history.
American investors claimed the banks joined together to manipulate the US$5.3trn a day foreign exchange market.
Legal firm Hausfeld, which represented the investors, said that the agreements were preliminary and subject to approval by US District Judge Lorna Schofield.
As yet, there has been no information on how the sum would be divided between the banks if passed.
“In addition to the billions of dollars in compensation, these settling banks have agreed to cooperate with investors in their continuing litigation” against other institutions, Hausfeld said.
The banks yet to settle are Standard Chartered (LON:STAN), Societe Generale, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, RBC Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
The US$2bn includes earlier settlements of US$800mln, with JPMorgan, Bank of America, UBS and Citigroup.
“While the recoveries here are tremendous, they are just the beginning,” said Hausfeld chairman Michael Hausfeld.
“Investors around the world should take note of the significant recoveries secured in the United States and recognize that these settlements cover a fraction of the world’s largest financial market,” he said.
Article: RBS, Barclays, HSBC … it’s time to get out of coal!
Article - Media, PublicationsRBS, Barclays, HSBC … it’s time to get out of coal!
Greig Aitken BankTrack, 04 August 2015
In advance of the UN climate summit in Paris, campaign groups are urging the banking sector to take one concrete step towards combatting the climate crisis, and quit financing coal.
It is hard to think of a UK business sector in more dire need of an image boost than the banking sector. The UK’s three biggest banks – Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC – appear stuck on a never-ending, Escher-esque scandal treadmill of their own making.
Round and round they go, ripping off small businesses (RBS), enabling Latin American drug cartels to launder billions and orchestrating tax evasion in Switzerland (HSBC), and blatantly mis-selling payment protection insurance to vulnerable customers (Barclays).
This behaviour is of course accompanied by obscene bonuses that the same banks have still seen fit to churn out to staff as regularly as clockwork every year since the 2008 crash.
Reporting from outside RBS’s City of London headquarters in November last year as a further multi-bank scandal concerning illegal foreign exchange rate manipulation was breaking, the Economics Editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason, visibly fighting back the expletives, let rip on air:
“I’m just sick of it, after six years why do we have to keep coming to do it?”
He was referring to yet more time spent covering yet more market manipulation, with little in the way of effective sanctions being dished out to prevent it, Mason’s angst summed up the UK public’s views about the banks.
Article: Valuing Tucows Inc. (TCX) From A Bearish Perspective
Article - Media, PublicationsValuing Tucows Inc. (TCX) From A Bearish Perspective
Sonya Colberg, 03 August 2015
You’ve almost gotta love Tucows Inc. (USA) (NASDAQ:TCX) for its humor, as demonstrated by the company reportedly taking a real cow to a conference, plus its depiction of two cows in its logo. But the negatives inherent in Tucows’ business plan utterly outweigh its funny personality. Continue reading “Article: Valuing Tucows Inc. (TCX) From A Bearish Perspective”
Fined: Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing Fined by FINRA (July 2015)
Article - Media, FinedMichelle Ong, Nancy Condon
FINRA.org, 27 July 2015
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, L.P. $1.8 million for systemic Order Audit Trail System (OATS) reporting violations spanning a period of more than eight years, failure to accurately submit required trade reports to the appropriate FINRA Trade Reporting Facility (TRF), and related supervisory failures.
Article: Boston pension fund accuses big banks of manipulating U.S. securities
Article - MediaBoston pension fund accuses big banks of manipulating U.S. securities
Greg Ryan
Boston Business Journal, 24 July 2015
The city of Boston’s pension fund has sued more than 20 of the world’s largest financial companies, claiming they conspired to alter the prices of U.S. Treasury securities they sold to the fund and other investors across the country.
The lawsuit, which was filed in New York federal court on Thursday, targets Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup Global Markets, among other dealers of the securities.
Article: Goldman Sachs Internal Memo (Yesterday): “Easy to Borrow List to be Discontinued”
Article - MediaGoldman Sachs Internal Memo (Yesterday): “Easy to Borrow List to be Discontinued”
Patrick Byrne
DeepCapture, 23 July 2015
My battle with Wall Street started off as a fight regarding slop in the settlement system and how it could be used to rig the stock market (the battle later expanded into other areas, including organized crime, economic warfare, and what I felt was an insufficiently proactive regulatory environment, the latter of which, I am happy to say, is showing signs of real improvement). For a decade I have asserted that one of the sources of that slop has been the system that governs short selling. One of the sources of that slop has concerned how hedge funds locate stock to short sell. And one form of that slop originates in the “Easy to Borrow List” that prime brokerages put out each day.
Comment: Goldman stopped but everyone else still does it.
Article: As China stocks sink, some accuse Morgan Stanley, other foreign forces
Article - MediaAs China stocks sink, some accuse Morgan Stanley, other foreign forces
Laura He
MarketWatch, 3 July 2015
The recent, drastic stock-market meltdown in China seems to have freaked out the country’s government and central bank, as their repeated efforts to stabilize the markets have failed, at least so far.
And now, some segments of Chinese society are now raising the possibility that “evil” market forces going short to ruin the economy, and even suspecting investment “predators” of lurking behind the turmoil, with Morgan Stanley among the names mentioned.
