Bloomberg – Page 5 – Financial Treason & Crime

Money Talking, 02 February 2018

Before he was known for an insider trading scandal, Steven Cohen was known as the “hedge fund king,” bringing sky-high returns to clients at his super successful firm, SAC Capital Advisors — and serving as an inspiration for the Showtime series “Billions.”

Now, Cohen is looking to get back into business after a two-year ban on trading other people’s money ended at the start of this year. With his new company, Point72 Asset Management, Cohen is once again courting clients and their billions — up to $4 billion, according to a recent report from Bloomberg. Continue reading “Article: ‘Hedge Fund King’ Steven Cohen Gets Back to Business”

09/08/201703/04/2021

Article: Steven Cohen’s Billions Complicate Return of Glory Days

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Steven Cohen’s Billions Complicate Return of Glory Days

Nir Kaissar, 08 September 2017

(Bloomberg Gadfly) — Don’t call it a comeback just yet. As Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, hedge fund manager Steven A. Cohen is preparing to raise as much as $10 billion from outside investors in 2018 for a new fund. Combined with his personal fortune of $11 billion, the fund could oversee more than $20 billion, which would make it the largest U.S. hedge fund launch in history. Continue reading “Article: Steven Cohen’s Billions Complicate Return of Glory Days”

03/05/201703/20/2021

Article: BlackRock, PIMCO said to plan new front in bank FX-rigging cases

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BlackRock, PIMCO said to plan new front in bank FX-rigging cases

Bloomberg, 05 March 2017

Some of the world’s biggest investors are working with a U.S. law firm to prepare a fresh wave of litigation against banks accused of rigging foreign-exchange markets.

BlackRock, Pacific Investment Management Co. and hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management are working with law firm Quinn Emanuel to recover losses they blame on the manipulation of currency benchmarks, according to two people familiar with the case, who asked not to be identified because nothing has been filed.

The target banks, including Barclays, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings, J.P. Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and UBS Group, have been fined billions of dollars for conspiring to rig FX benchmarks. The firm, which will probably file lawsuits in London and New York, is trying to attract additional investors, the people said.

Quinn Emanuel’s clients will likely opt out of an existing New York class action over currency manipulation that won a total of about $2 billion in settlements from HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Goldman Sachs Group and others in 2015, according to people with knowledge of the firm’s strategy.

Opting out of the class action would allow large investors to seek higher settlements by pursuing a global strategy that includes the recovery of losses from London, where a significant portion of global trades are settled. The existing class action is limited to transactions that took place in New York.

The two law firms that are running the existing U.S. lawsuit, Hausfeld and Scott + Scott, won’t give up control of the case without a fight.

In an April 24 letter emailed to U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield, lawyers complained that “certain unnamed law firms were sending false and misleading communications to class members to persuade them to opt out of the settlements,” the judge said in a court order Thursday. She set a May 12 deadline for the two firms to make a formal request as to what she should do in response.

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11/16/201403/20/2021

Article: Common currency: a forex scandal that epitomises the blindness in the banking crisis

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Common currency: a forex scandal that epitomises the blindness in the banking crisis

Andre Spicer, 16 November 2014

The biggest open secret in the financial world has been confirmed. Regulators in the UK, the US and Switzerland have announced massive fines for some of the world’s largest banks for a manipulation of global currency markets that in its callous ubiquity says so much about the banking behaviours that sparked the global financial crisis.

Fines levied by the UK regulator add up to £1.1 billion. The US regulator announced fines of $1.4 billion. Banks hit by these fines include UBS, Citi, JP Morgan, HSBC and RBS. Barclays is yet to come to a settlement on the back of the investigations.

The probe uncovered individuals traders within large banks who were working together in trading clubs which had names you would expect from the “ruthless narcissists” on BBC TV show, The Apprentice. These included “the players”, “the 3 musketeers” and “1 team, 1 dream”.

These clubs worked together to influence the WM Reuters 4pm fix – essentially the official number used to fix currency rates. It shapes everything from how much we pay for currency when we go overseas to how much our pension fund pays when it wants to buy into an offshore investment. This is one of the core numbers in global finance.

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03/07/201403/18/2021

Article: Barclays, Deutsche Bank Accused of Gold Fix Manipulation

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Barclays, Deutsche Bank Accused of Gold Fix Manipulation

Better Markets, 07 March 2014

“Barclays Plc (BARC), Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and three other banks were accused in a lawsuit of manipulating the London gold fix, a benchmark used throughout the $20 trillion market for the metal.”

“Kevin Maher, a New York resident who said he bought and sold gold and gold futures and options, sued yesterday in Manhattan federal court claiming the five banks overseeing the century-old benchmark colluded to manipulate it.” Continue reading “Article: Barclays, Deutsche Bank Accused of Gold Fix Manipulation”

02/28/201403/20/2021

Article: London Gold Fix study suggests decade of bank manipulation

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London Gold Fix study suggests decade of bank manipulation

Bloomberg News, 28 February 2014

The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewellers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say.

Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be investigated, New York University’s Stern School of Business Professor Rosa Abrantes-Metz and Albert Metz, a managing director at Moody’s Investors Service, wrote in a draft research paper.

“The structure of the benchmark is certainly conducive to collusion and manipulation, and the empirical data are consistent with price artificiality,” they say in the report, which hasn’t yet been submitted for publication. “It is likely that co-operation between participants may be occurring.”

The paper is the first to raise the possibility that the five banks overseeing the century-old rate —Barclays Plc, Deutsche Bank AG, Bank of Nova Scotia, HSBC Holdings Plc and Societe Generale SA — may have been actively working together to manipulate the benchmark. It also adds to pressure on the firms to overhaul the way the rate is calculated. Authorities around the world, already investigating the manipulation of benchmarks from interest rates to foreign exchange, are examining the $20 trillion gold market for signs of wrongdoing.

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10/09/201304/12/2021

Article: RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation

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RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation

Jill Treanor, 09 October 2013

Royal Bank of Scotland has handed the City regulator messages sent by one of its former traders in the latest twist in an investigation into potential manipulation of currency rates.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) began an investigation into the £3tn-a-day foreign exchange market in June following allegations that traders at major banks had found ways to manipulate a closely followed currency benchmark. Continue reading “Article: RBS releases documents over alleged currency manipulation”

05/16/201203/13/2021

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”

12/08/201103/13/2021

Article: SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says

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SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says

jgoff, 08 December 2011

Auction-rate securities holders seeking to win back part of the $330 billion they’ve invested, may get help from a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission legal brief supporting claims that Merrill Lynch & Co. rigged the moribund market, a lawyer involved in the case said. Continue reading “Article: SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says”

09/14/200905/20/2020

Article: Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Bonuses

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Judge Rejects Settlement Over Merrill Bonuses

Zachary Kouwe

New York Times, 14 September 2009

As President Obama traveled to Wall Street on Monday and chided bankers for their recklessness, across town a federal judge issued a far sharper rebuke, not just for some of the financiers but for their regulators in Washington as well.

Giving voice to the anger and frustration of many ordinary Americans, Judge Jed S. Rakoff issued a scathing ruling on one of the watershed moments of the financial crisis: the star-crossed takeover of Merrill Lynch by the now-struggling Bank of America.

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11/02/200704/01/2021

Article: Overstock.com Congratulates Bloomberg Television for Its Emmy Nomination for ‘Phantom Shares’, a Special Report on Naked Short Selling

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Overstock.com Congratulates Bloomberg Television for Its Emmy Nomination for ‘Phantom Shares’, a Special Report on Naked Short Selling

PRNewswire, 02 November 2007

Bloomberg Television’s special report on naked short selling entitled “Phantom Shares” was nominated for an Emmy(R) Award for Business & Financial Reporting by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The report, which was nominated for outstanding investigative reporting of a business news story – news magazines and long form, featured Overstock.com and its Chairman and CEO, Patrick Byrne, extensively. It examined the strategy and execution of naked short selling, the threat this poses to American entrepreneurship, and the steps regulators are taking to control it.

Patrick Byrne said of the news, “Unsettled trades in our stock settlement system present a serious problem to our capital markets. Bloomberg’s report shed light on the issue and brought it into the mainstream. It is an example of the critical, investigative mindset that is essentially absent within American financial journalism, and I am pleased to see Bloomberg being recognized for its fine work.”

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04/05/200704/01/2021

Article: Bloomberg TV’s Special Report “Phantom Shares” (later nominated for an Emmy for Investigative Journalism)

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Bloomberg TV’s Special Report “Phantom Shares” (later nominated for an Emmy for Investigative Journalism)

PATRICK BYRNE, 05 April 2007

Bloomberg Television has produced a shocking 25 minute exposé showing how Wall Street rogues are exploiting a crack in the system to steal tens of billions of dollars from Americans. The Bloomberg piece starts by talking about Overstock (I make a brief appearance, as a guy just trying to be a good citizen), but goes on to describe a wildly illegal scheme that hurts thousands of companies and millions of Americans with stock accounts. This may turn into a financial scandal that makes Enron look like a Sunday picnic.

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03/13/200704/01/2021

Article: Bloomberg TV Examines ‘Phantom Shares’ in Special Report Tonight

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Bloomberg TV Examines ‘Phantom Shares’ in Special Report Tonight

Bloomberg , 13 March 2007

NEW YORK, March 13 /PRNewswire/ — Tonight BLOOMBERG TELEVISION(R) examines a little-known stock trading practice that can be affecting your portfolio and your company. The special report, titled “Phantom Shares,” explores the problem of “naked shorting” in the stock market. The half-hour BLOOMBERG TELEVISION program is scheduled to air on Tuesday, March 13, 2007 at 7:00, 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. ET.

Every day, millions of shares of stock are sold but can’t be delivered because of an obscure trading practice called “naked short selling.” In a normal short sale, an investor borrows shares and sells them, making a profit if the price falls by replacing the borrowed shares with cheaper ones. In a naked short sale, an investor doesn’t borrow the shares, but sells them anyway. In extreme cases, the investor sells “Phantom Shares,” shares that don’t exist. The BLOOMBERG TELEVISION report, anchored by Mike Schneider, explains this practice, how it’s executed and what the Securities and Exchange Commission is doing in an effort to control it. Continue reading “Article: Bloomberg TV Examines ‘Phantom Shares’ in Special Report Tonight”