Matt Taibbi: Let the Apes Have Wall Street
Article - Media
Let the Apes Have Wall Street
Matt Taibbi, 10 June 2021
The much-publicized war over “meme stocks” drags a longstanding Wall Street ripoff out of the shadows, to hilarious results
On CNBC’s Fast Money last week, anchor Melissa Lee appeared to mention the unmentionable. She was talking with Tim Seymour, CEO of Seymour Asset Management, who made offhand mention of the hedge funds shorting now-infamous stocks like AMC and GameStop. “Look, there are a lot of short sellers out there who have been borrowing stock they didn’t have,” Seymour said.
“Naked shorts, yeah,” said Lee.
Article: Wall Street Is Donating to This D.A. Candidate. Is That a Problem?
Article - Media, PublicationsWall Street Is Donating to This D.A. Candidate. Is That a Problem?
Jonah E. Bromwich, 13 April 2021
Even had she not raised more money than her rivals, Tali Farhadian Weinstein would be a formidable candidate in the nine-way race to become the Manhattan district attorney, perhaps the most high-profile local prosecutor’s office in the country.
She was a Rhodes scholar, has an elite legal résumé and is the only candidate who has worked for both the Justice Department and a city prosecutor’s office. And while most of the candidates are campaigning as reformers intent on reducing incarceration, Ms. Farhadian Weinstein, 45, has staked out a slightly more conservative position, expressing concerns about guns and gangs. Continue reading “Article: Wall Street Is Donating to This D.A. Candidate. Is That a Problem?”
Tweet by Ben Hunt on Twitter
TweetThey’re not even pretending anymore. https://t.co/rLo2z6i9j7
— Ben Hunt (@EpsilonTheory) April 1, 2021
Article: Melvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy
Article - Media, PublicationsMelvin Capital Is Facing Nine Lawsuits Related to the GameStop Frenzy
Michelle Celarier, Institutional Investor, 22 March 2021
Gabriel Plotkin’s Melvin Capital, the hedge fund at the center of the GameStop trading frenzy in January, is a defendant in nine lawsuits by retail investors alleging a conspiracy to limit trading that caused them to lose money.
The hedge fund revealed the existence of the lawsuits in its annual ADV filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Melvin was famously short GameStop and lost more than 50 percent during January following a short squeeze orchestrated by a Reddit forum called WallStreetBets, whose members included retail investors in GameStop. As the stock soared, various online brokerages catering to those investors, including Robinhood, restricted buying shares of GameStop, among other stocks heavily shorted by Melvin.
Article: 77% of people surveyed believe Robinhood’s restriction of meme stocks during the GameStop frenzy was market manipulation, new report finds
Article - Media, PublicationsIsabelle Lee, 01 March 2021
A survey by data analytics firm Invisibly found that 77% of people believe Robinhood’s restriction of certain stocks at the peak of the Reddit-fueled frenzy amounts to market manipulation.
Commission-free trading app Robinhood has faced significant backlash and scrutiny in the weeks since January’s Reddit-fueled short squeeze, with CEO Vlad Tenev grilled by legislators at February’s congressional hearing over the company’s decision to restrict buying of many of the “meme stocks” at the heart of the saga.
The move took the wind out of the momentum trade, and marked the end of January’s retail trader phenomenon.
Now, a recent study by data analytics from Invisibly found that a majority of people surveyed believe Robinhood’s restriction of meme stocks was market manipulation.
The study, which surveyed 1,300 people during the first week of February, also revealed that 39% felt the market mania was “exciting and good” for investors, while 17% felt it was “exciting but a bad investment.”
28% said the trading phenomenon was a positive event, and “shaking things up from time to time is a good thing”, while 15% felt it was detrimental to markets. Meanwhile, 40% of respondents believe that Robinhood and other retail trading services restricted some stocks to help hedge funds.
The survey paints a stark picture of the public’s perception of what transpired in late January, despite Robinhood stating that it restricted trading of some stocks due to clearinghouse requirements.
Director’s Cut: Michelle Holiday With G. Edward Griffin
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Article: The GameStop Mess Exposes the Naked Short Selling Scam
Article - Media, PublicationsThe GameStop Mess Exposes the Naked Short Selling Scam
LUCY KOMISAR, 25 February 2021
At the House Financial Services Committee hearing last week on the GameStop debacle, there was an elephant in the room: naked short selling.
Short selling, effectively betting that a stock will go down, involves a trader selling shares he does not own, hoping to buy them back at a lower price to make money on the spread. The trader is supposed to locate (or have a “reasonable belief” he can locate) or borrow the shares in brokerage accounts, and then transfer them to the buyer within two days. This accounts for as much as 50 percent of daily trading. Continue reading “Article: The GameStop Mess Exposes the Naked Short Selling Scam”
EIN TOON: Joint Cover-Up Committee on Financial Crime
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Tweet: Who is handling Griffin’s teleprompter?
TweetWho is handling Griffin's teleprompter? pic.twitter.com/IzjzGjmD33
— Rudy Havenstein, be nice to someone for no reason. (@RudyHavenstein) February 18, 2021
Article: Trading hot stocks like GameStop seems fun until you look beneath the surface
Article - MediaTrading hot stocks like GameStop seems fun until you look beneath the surface
Congress is asking questions about whether middlemen or “market makers” like Citadel that execute stock trades really give small investors the best prices.
Gretchen Morgenson, ABCNews, 18 February 2021
Market makers like Citadel make money by pocketing the difference between the price at which they buy shares — the bid — and the price they receive from selling them to Robinhood clients, the offer. Other firms in the business are Virtu Americas, G1X Execution Services and Two Sigma Securities.
Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation
Article - Media, PublicationsWatch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation
Jonathan Ponciano, 18 February 2021
A Congressional hearing into the GameStop mania that triggered the largest weekly selloff since late October is underway, with some of the key players in the saga—billionaire Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, Reddit Cofounder Steve Huffman and the 34-year-old securities broker behind the Roaring Kitty online persona—all set to testify.
Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Mo.) kicked off the hearing by asking Tenev whether he misled investors on January 28 when he denied that Robinhood had a liquidity problem despite raising more than $3 billion in the following days to meet reserve requirements from the Securities & Exchange Commission. Continue reading “Article: Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation”
Article: Citadel’s Griffin Likely To Be The Biggest Target Of Thursday’s Congressional Hearings
Article - Media, PublicationsCitadel’s Griffin Likely To Be The Biggest Target Of Thursday’s Congressional Hearings
Tyler Durden, 17 February 2021
Despite the fact that it was reported on Wednesday that Reddit ringleader Deepf*ckingvalue was being sued for securities fraud in the GameStop fiasco, Ken Griffin’s Citadel is likely going to be the biggest target during Thursday’s congressional hearings.
At the core of the runup in GameStop stock was Griffin’s Citadel, executing trades on behalf of Robinhood, who it pays for order flow. Griffin was also at the center of the controversy due to one of his other businesses offering up a $2 billion bailout to Melvin Capital, who was hit hard by the runup in shares.
And so, Griffin will likely become the target for all types of grandstanding and faux outrage at Thursday’s hearing, where a clueless House Financial Services Committee will do their best to fake any understanding of capital markets while attempting to put on a political show. Citadel could be the scapegoat for all types of new financial regulation, Bloomberg wrote on Wednesday.
Continue reading “Article: Citadel’s Griffin Likely To Be The Biggest Target Of Thursday’s Congressional Hearings”
Article: Here’s what to expect at the congressional hearings on GameStop and Robinhood
Article - MediaHere’s what to expect at the congressional hearings on GameStop and Robinhood
Scum sucking sack of shit lawmakers will seek to make headlines, not legislation — and all the witnesses are probably RICO eligible!
Chris Matthews, MarketWatch, 16 February 2021
Executives at Robinhood, market maker Citadel Securities, hedge fund Melvin Capital, social media firm Reddit, and Keith Gill, an independent investor who found fame and riches with his early purchases of GameStop Inc. GME, -5.52% shares, will all testify at the hearing, scheduled for noon on Thursday. Here’s what to expect:
David K. Lifschultz: New Forms of [Wall Street] Treason?
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Max Keiser does not really understand what the monetary expansion has to cover.
You have according to the BIS 600 trillion in derivatives against a 81 trillion dollar world GDP or a multiple of 7. The BIS coordinates only the banks so this figure does not include insurance company derivatives or others in private industry unless a bank is connected to the transaction so it is grossly understated. Some Swiss bankers tell me it is more like 1.2 quadrillion and others up to 2.5 quadrillion. 1.2 quadrillion gives you a multiple on the world GDP of 14 and 2.5 quadrillion a multiple of 30.
Continue reading “David K. Lifschultz: New Forms of [Wall Street] Treason?”
