Article: Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia’s naked shorts

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Emails show journalist rigged Wikipedia’s naked shorts

Cade Metz

The Register, 1 October 2008

Two and a half years ago, Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne penned an editorial for The Wall Street Journal, warning that widespread stock manipulation schemes – including abusive naked short selling – were threatening the health of America’s financial markets. But it wasn’t published.

“An editor at The Journal asked me to write it, and I told him he wouldn’t be allowed to publish it,” Byrne says. “He insisted that only he controlled what was printed on the editorial page, so I wrote it. Then, after a few days, he got back to me and said ‘It appears I can’t run this or anything else you write.'”

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Web: Naked in Wonderland

Web

Naked in Wonderland

Patrick Byrne

Forbes via Wayback, 23 September 2008

Recent concerns about short-selling have culminated in a regulatory flurry of emergency orders and amendments. What should be of concern, however, is not short-selling per se: As its devotees frequently remind us, short-selling is a vital and legitimate market activity. What should be of concern are specific types of stock manipulation that cloak themselves within legitimate activities such as shorting, and which, in one way or another, rely upon loopholes in our nation’s system of stock settlement.

“Settlement” is the moment in a stock trade when the seller receives money and the buyer receives stock. Our settlement system has gaping loopholes that allow sellers to sell shares but fail to deliver them. In such cases, the system creates IOUs for shares, and lets those “stock IOUs” circulate in the expectation the seller will soon correct his error. This is harmless–as long as the IOUs are inadvertent, temporary and few.

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Web: SEC Discovers That Unbridled Naked Short Selling Might Actually Be, Er, Not So Good….

Web

SEC Discovers That Unbridled Naked Short Selling Might Actually Be, Er, Not So Good….

Bob O’Brien

Sanity Check via Wayback, 15 July 2008

What we are seeing is the US markets relentlessly melting down, as even the bulge bracket firms, and the “too big to fail” entities, are victimized by unbridled, unconstrained naked short selling. Exactly as used to be the case in the 1920’s. Exactly in the manner that resulted in the SEC being formed, and the uptick rule (discarded just a few short months back as an anachronism), and requirements for timely clearing and delivery. All of which the SEC has basically ignored, very deliberately.

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Web: Patrick Byrne Covers Up Ownership of ‘Deep Capture’ Smear Site

Web

Patrick Byrne Covers Up Ownership of ‘Deep Capture’ Smear Site

Gary Weiss

gary-weiss.com, 19 June 2008

A couple of months ago I described how Overstock.com’s terminally wacky CEO Patrick Byrne has thrown caution (and any lingering sanity) to the winds and was openly sponsoring attacks on journalists and other critics, on a smear site that he owned and was operated on Overstock servers, “Deep Capture.”

This was a change from Byrne’s previous tactic of claiming that smears and attacks were by people who just coincidentally happened to be his employees. The word for this is “astroturfing,” and it is a particularly sleazy method of concealing corporate (and sometimes government) involvement in dirty tricks campaigns.

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Article: The Simple, Literal Explanation

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The Simple, Literal Explanation

Patrick Byrne

DeepCapture, 11 February 2008

The “St. Smallcap” example conveyed the dynamics of the manipulation, but it was only a metaphor. This blog will provide an explanation whose truth is more literal.

You and I enter a stock trade. You buy a share of stock from me. You hand over your money, and I hand over the share of stock. That is called, “settlement.”

It may surprise you to learn that there are loopholes in our nation’s regulations that permit some people, when it comes time to settle, to hand over nothing but an IOU. By using one of these loopholes, when the time comes for settlement I can take your money but say, “I’m not delivering you any stock. I’m just giving you an IOU for a share of stock that I will deliver later.”

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

Article - Media, Publications

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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Article: Overstock attempts to uncover malicious naked shorts

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Overstock attempts to uncover malicious naked shorts

Keith Hahn

Dealbreaker, 25 April 2007

Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, is seeking $3.5bn in damages from 10 prime brokers for intentionally manipulating Overstock’s share price through naked shorting. The big names charged are Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley.

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

Article - Media, Publications

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

Article - Media, Publications

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”

Article: Flames Flare Over Naked Shorts

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Flames Flare Over Naked Shorts

Dan Mitchell

New York Times, 20 January 2007

UNSUSPECTING readers of certain stock message boards may be forgiven for believing they have stumbled into a flame war among 14-year-old boys. But the increasingly vicious online dispute actually involves, among others, the chief executive of a publicly traded corporation and a longtime business journalist.

The chief executive is Patrick Byrne, who in recent years has taken to asserting that a vast conspiracy of securities traders, journalists and government officials is bent on bringing down the stock of his company, Overstock.com, a peddler of excess inventory. The journalist is Gary Weiss, the author and former BusinessWeek reporter who has made a second career out of ridiculing Mr. Byrne on his blog (garyweiss.blogspot.com).

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Article: Naked Short Selling – How Exposed Are Investors?

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Naked Short Selling: How Exposed are Investors?

James W. Christian, Robert Shapiro, John-Paul Whalen

The Houston Law Review, 10 November 2006

Regulation SHO is a start, but in order to guarantee a fair market place, the SEC must close the loopholes in Regulation SHO and institute comprehensive reforms to the clearing and settlement system. Until the SEC makes these necessary reforms and addresses the DTCC’s mismanagement of the Stock Borrow Program, investors will continue to be exposed to the manipulative potential of naked short selling.

PDF (58 Pages):  HLR Naked Short Selling 2006-11-10

Article: Outcry grows over naked short sales

Article - Media

Outcry grows over naked short sales

Will Shanley

The Denver Post, 14 October 2006

It began as Pederson watched words appear on her computer screen at her Arvada home office. Investors, writing via an Internet chat room, were touting a mining company called CMKM Diamonds Inc.

The Las Vegas-based company, the investors claimed, owned mineral rights to more than a million acres of diamond-rich land in Saskatchewan, Canada. Intrigued, Pederson bought shares worth $15,000.

The decision began Pederson’s involvement in a saga that includes lawsuits, huge financial losses and allegations of fraud on Wall Street and inaction by federal regulators.

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Article: Naked Fines

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Naked Fines

Liz Moyer

Forbes, 13 September 2006

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has received a deluge of requests to amend short-selling rules it enacted just two years ago as the New York Stock Exchange continues its efforts to enforce existing regulations.

JPMorgan Chase has become the fifth bank to be censured and fined by the NYSE’s regulatory division for violations of trading rules meant to curb abusive short-selling.

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THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?