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Article: In another Wall Street misdeed, Morgan Stanley settles oil-trading flap

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In another Wall Street misdeed, Morgan Stanley settles oil-trading flap

Kevin G. Hall

McClatchy Newspapers, 29 April 2010

In another black eye for Wall Street, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission late Thursday announced a $14 million fine against Morgan Stanley Capital Group Inc. for allegedly hiding its complex oil trades.

The settlement, in which Morgan Stanley did not admit or deny the accusations, comes as oil prices have continued their steady upwards march and have some oil analysts again saying that excessive speculation is again pushing up energy prices. One recent estimate put the cost of that to consumers and businesses at $300 billion annually.

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Video: CMKM Diamonds Follow Up

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Alyona follows up with one of our most viewed and asked about stories, CMKM Diamonds. She chats with CMKM shareholder Dave Nelson about the struggles that the shareholders have faced over the past few years.

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Article: Wall Street’s Naked Swindle

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Wall Street’s Naked Swindle

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 5 April 2010

On Tuesday, March 11th, 2008, somebody — nobody knows who —made one of the craziest bets Wall Street has ever seen. The mystery figure spent $1.7 million on a series of options, gambling that shares in the venerable investment bank Bear Stearns would lose more than half their value in nine days or less. It was madness — “like buying 1.7 million lottery tickets,” according to one financial analyst.

But what’s even crazier is that the bet paid.

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Video: The S.E.Cs 3.87 trillion dollar lawsuit

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Its the largest fraud case in world history. It is alleged that between June of 2004 and October of 2005, over 2 trillion dollars worth of fake CMKM Diamonds Inc. shares were sold to the public. The companys shareholders are now suing the S.E.C for 3.87 trillion dollars. Tim Barello from the Manhattan Headlines Examiner joins Alyona from New York to tell you more.

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Article: Currency wars and the emerging-market countries

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Currency wars and the emerging-market countries

Richard Portes, 04 November 2010

The headlines shout “currency wars”. The US believes China engages in “currency manipulation”. The authorities hesitate to declare this to the US Congress, and the Secretary of the Treasury says “competitive non-appreciation” instead. China accuses the US of excessively loose monetary policy, flooding the world with liquidity. There is some truth in both charges, but some exaggeration.

This is one of the key issues facing the G20. Exchange-rate pressures, global imbalances and rebalancing, spillovers and the desirability of policy coordination – these are at the centre of the economic interdependence between the developed and emerging market countries. All this is in the context of weak US and European recoveries from the Great Recession, the risk of deflation, and the likelihood of more quantitative easing (QE) by major central banks. Domestic issues and inability to get direct action on exchange rates has led the US to propose internationally agreed targets for current-account imbalances. The wheel goes round – these proposals bear some resemblance to those of Keynes at Bretton Woods, which the US then opposed.

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Article: Steven Cohen’s Hedge Fund Being Investigated For Insider Trading: Report

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Steven Cohen’s Hedge Fund Being Investigated For Insider Trading: Report

Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst, 18 March 2010

The question on the minds of investors, managers and lawyers inside and outside the hedge fund industry today is, who’s next? Continue reading “Article: Steven Cohen’s Hedge Fund Being Investigated For Insider Trading: Report”

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Article: SEABRIDGE GOLD (AMEX:SA)… DID YOU KNOW THIS? Dreams of Gold vs Reality of Share Prices

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SEABRIDGE GOLD (AMEX:SA)… DID YOU KNOW THIS? Dreams of Gold vs Reality of Share Prices

Citron Research, 10 March 2010

Seabridge’s explicitly advertised and promoted investment premise is that it is a “call option” on the future price of gold. Citron believes this premise is utterly false. Aside from all the background noise about stock promotions, Seabridge investors invest in the stock because they hope it will rise in value as the price of gold rises. As the company has told them, it is a levered play on gold. Continue reading “Article: SEABRIDGE GOLD (AMEX:SA)… DID YOU KNOW THIS? Dreams of Gold vs Reality of Share Prices”

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Article: LARRY FINK’S $12 TRILLION SHADOW

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LARRY FINK’S $12 TRILLION SHADOW

SUZANNA ANDREWS, 02 March 2010

Though few Americans know his name, Larry Fink may be the most powerful man in the post-bailout economy. His giant BlackRock money-management firm controls or monitors more than $12 trillion worldwide—including the balance sheets of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the toxic A.I.G. and Bear Stearns assets taken over by the U.S. government last year. How did Fink rebound from a humiliating failure to become the financial fulcrum of Washington and Wall Street? Through a series of interviews, the author probes his role in the crisis, his unique risk-assessment system, and the growing concern he inspires. Continue reading “Article: LARRY FINK’S $12 TRILLION SHADOW”

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Article: How “Activist Investors” David Einhorn and Dan Loeb Brought Their Special Talents to Bear On New Century Financial

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How “Activist Investors” David Einhorn and Dan Loeb Brought Their Special Talents to Bear On New Century Financial

Mark Mitchell

DeepCapture, 18 February 2010

You don’t hear much about it, but the March 2007 bankruptcy of a company called New Century Financial was arguably one of the most important events leading up to the financial crisis that nearly caused a second Great Depression.

It was the demise of New Century, then the nation’s second largest mortgage lender, that triggered the collapse of the market for collateralized debt obligations. And it was the collapse in the value of collateralized debt obligations (a majority of which contained New Century mortgages) that hobbled a number of big financial firms. Once hobbled, the likes of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were ripe targets for unscrupulous hedge fund managers who amplified their problems by spreading exaggerated rumors while bombarding them with illegal naked short selling.

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Article: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

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Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone, 17 February 2010

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.

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Article: AtriCure, Inc. to Pay U.S. $3.76 Million to Resolve Medicare Fraud Allegations

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AtriCure, Inc. to Pay U.S. $3.76 Million to Resolve Medicare Fraud Allegations

Biospace, 03 February 2010

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Atricure Inc., a medical device manufacturer, has agreed to pay the United States $3.76 million to resolve civil claims in connection with the alleged promotion of its surgical ablation devices, the Justice Department announced today. Surgical ablation devices use focused energy to create controlled lesions or scar tissue on a patient’s heart or other organs.

“This settlement reflects our commitment to enforce the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and protect Medicare from the improper marketing practices of Atricure and other medical device manufacturers,” said Tony West, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. “We will continue to work with our partners at the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General’s Office and the FDA Office of Chief Counsel to preserve the integrity of our public health programs.”
Continue reading “Article: AtriCure, Inc. to Pay U.S. $3.76 Million to Resolve Medicare Fraud Allegations”

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Article: German cabinet extends ban on naked short selling

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German cabinet extends ban on naked short selling

Sam Edmonds, 02 February 2010

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet has approved a draft law widening the government’s recent temporary ban on the short sale of certain types of shares – a practice known as naked short-selling. Continue reading “Article: German cabinet extends ban on naked short selling”

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Testimony: Mary Schapiro’s Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

Testimony

Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

Mary L. Schapiro

SEC, 14 January 2010

I believe the work of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (FCIC) is essential to helping policymakers and the public better understand the causes of the recent financial crisis and build a better regulatory structure. Indeed, just over seventy-five years ago, a similar Congressional committee was tasked with investigating the causes of the stock market crash of 1929. The hearings of that committee led by Ferdinand Pecora uncovered widespread fraud and abuse on Wall Street, including self-dealing and market manipulation among investment banks and their securities affiliates. The public airing of this abuse galvanized support for legislation that created the Securities and Exchange Commission in July 1934. Based on lessons learned from the Pecora investigation, Congress passed laws premised on the need to protect investors by requiring disclosure of material information and outlawing deceptive practices in the sale of securities.

PDF (29 pages): Testimony Concerning the State of the Financial Crisis

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Article: Shooting the Naked Messengers

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Shooting the Naked Messengers

Max Abelson

Observer, 13 January 2010

Last year, a 38-year-old named Judd Bagley found himself on Facebook, looking at the friend lists of reporters from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Barron’s and Reuters, and of wildly important hedge fund managers like Dan Loeb and David Einhorn.

Eventually creating a fake account, one person led to another. These people were all friends, he saw, and their friends were friends, too. A new chapter of a crusade was born.

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Article: Former Merrill Lynch official settles Enron allegations

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Former Merrill Lynch official settles Enron allegations

Nick Snow

OGJ, 11 January 2010

Daniel H. Bayly, Merrill Lynch & Co.’s (ML) former global head of investment banking, settled civil charges of aiding and abetting the Enron Corp. fraud, the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced.

SEC said US District Court in Houston entered a final judgment on Dec. 31, 2009, ordering Bayly, who neither admitted nor denied SEC’s allegations, to pay $301,000 for deposit in the commission’s Enron Fair Fund and to not serve as an officer or director of a publicly traded company for 5 years. He also was enjoined from violating federal antifraud provisions and from aiding and abetting violations of the periodic reporting, books-and-records, and internal control provisions, SEC said.

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