Hansen – Financial Treason & Crime

Tsvetana Paraskova, 05 May 2021

Money managers intimate a growing confidence that oil prices have room to run higher this year, thanks to expectations of a robust economic rebound and rising global demand for crude.

Last week, hedge funds added the most bullish positions in the oil complex in more than two and a half months, with the net long in crude oil futures jumping to the highest in six weeks. Continue reading “Article: Hedge Funds Bet On Higher Oil Prices”

04/26/202104/27/2021

Article: Big Short: UBS, Top Broker Face $23 Million Claim over Tesla Trades

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Big Short: UBS, Top Broker Face $23 Million Claim over Tesla Trades

Miriam Rozen, 26 April 2021

A UBS financial advisor in Madison, Wisconsin who oversees a 35-person team “repeatedly promoted the idea of short selling” shares of the electric car company Tesla, Inc., triggering more than $23 million in losses for four couples—all members of an extended family—and another investor, according to an arbitration claim filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The complaint cites Tesla short-selling recommendations–betting on the stock price’s decline–allegedly made in 2019 and 2020 by Andrew Burish, a 38-year industry veteran who started at UBS in 1984 and leads The Burish Group, one of the firm’s largest and most profitable teams in the Midwest. The team employs 14 advisors and manages more than $4 billion in client assets, according to its website. Continue reading “Article: Big Short: UBS, Top Broker Face $23 Million Claim over Tesla Trades”

04/06/202104/17/2021

Article: Rosen Law Aims To Lead Securities Claims In Robinhood MDL

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Rosen Law Aims To Lead Securities Claims In Robinhood MDL

Elise Hansen, 06 April 2021

The Rosen Law Firm PA on Tuesday sought to spearhead securities claims against Robinhood in newly centralized suits over the stock-trading app’s decision to block users from buying certain volatile stocks such as GameStop.

Cody Todd requested to serve as lead plaintiff for certain Robinhood Markets Inc. customers, with the Rosen Law Firm as lead counsel. The motion is the first such request since the suits were centralized in Florida federal court last week. Continue reading “Article: Rosen Law Aims To Lead Securities Claims In Robinhood MDL”

04/02/202104/17/2021

Article: Robinhood Restricted-Trading Suits Will Play Out In Florida

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Robinhood Restricted-Trading Suits Will Play Out In Florida

Elise Hansen, 02 April 2021

Dozens of lawsuits against stock-trading app Robinhood over its move to block users from buying shares of GameStop and other volatile stocks will be centralized and moved to the Southern District of Florida, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation said.

Panel Chair Karen K. Caldwell said Thursday that even though the suits have varied defendants and legal claims, there’s enough common ground to centralize the cases. Many of the plaintiffs and all of the defendants supported centralization, the order noted. Continue reading “Article: Robinhood Restricted-Trading Suits Will Play Out In Florida”

03/31/202104/01/2021

Article: Report: SEC Opens Preliminary Investigation Into Archegos’ Bill Hwang After $30 Billion Stock Liquidation

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Report: SEC Opens Preliminary Investigation Into Archegos’ Bill Hwang After $30 Billion Stock Liquidation

Sarah Hansen, 31 March 2021

TOPLINE The Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a preliminary investigation into Sung Kook “Bill Hwang,” whose Archegos Capital Management roiled markets by defaulting on risky margin calls last week and prompted $30 billion in losses, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.

Archegos defaulted on highly leveraged margin calls last Friday, triggering a fire sale of some $30 billion in stocks including ViacomCBS, Baidu, Tencent Music Entertainment and Discovery Communications as banks rushed to unwind their positions. Credit Suisse and Nomura—two of the firm’s brokers—warned this week of “significant losses.” Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were also forced to liquidate the positions they held for Archegos, but did so more quickly than other banks and as a result saw smaller losses, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Continue reading “Article: Report: SEC Opens Preliminary Investigation Into Archegos’ Bill Hwang After $30 Billion Stock Liquidation”

03/25/202103/26/2021

Article: Report: Robinhood Is Building A Platform To Democratize IPOs

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Report: Robinhood Is Building A Platform To Democratize IPOs

Sarah Hansen, 25 March 2021

Robinhood is working on a platform that will allow its users to buy into initial public offerings, Reuters exclusively reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the process, marking another push by the popular investment app to democratize investment opportunities that are traditionally only available to big banks and Wall Street firms.

The allocation of IPO shares is a complex process—it doesn’t happen the same way for every listing and can depend on the type of industry and market conditions at the time. In general, the majority of available shares go to institutional investors. Some shares can also be reserved for retail investors, who are then able to buy them through their brokerage firms. More established and wealthier retail investors often have a better chance of receiving IPO shares than lay people, especially in popular listings. Continue reading “Article: Report: Robinhood Is Building A Platform To Democratize IPOs”

03/24/202104/17/2021

Article: Robinhood ‘Concealed’ Costs Of Trading, Users Say

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Robinhood ‘Concealed’ Costs Of Trading, Users Say

Elise Hansen, 24 March 2021

Securities-trading app Robinhood failed to secure the best possible execution for many of its trades, a practice that according to regulators cost users roughly $34 million, a proposed class of users told a California federal court.

Customers Isaac Landreth and Jaime Marquez alleged Tuesday that they had invested tens of thousands of dollars using Robinhood’s trading platform, but that the company failed to properly explain how it made money and at times gave customers a worse deal than its competitors. Continue reading “Article: Robinhood ‘Concealed’ Costs Of Trading, Users Say”

03/12/202104/17/2021

Article: Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning

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Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning

Elise Hansen, 12 March 2021

A California federal judge on Friday nixed traders’ lawsuit accusing cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX of racketeering and “myriad” illegal activities, and warned the traders “to allege only relevant facts” if they bring their claims again.

U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick said four individual traders and BMA LLC, an entity co-owned by several traders, did not adequately show how they had been harmed by the alleged wrongdoing. While the traders may try again with their claims, Judge Orrick cautioned against the lengthy style of their original complaint. Continue reading “Article: Traders’ BitMEX Racketeering Suit Dismissed With A Warning”

02/11/202104/03/2021

Article: Report: Feds Investigating Meme Stock Frenzy For Market Manipulation

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Report: Feds Investigating Meme Stock Frenzy For Market Manipulation

Sarah Hansen, 11 February 2021

Federal authorities are investigating whether massive gains in “meme stocks” like GameStop in January were caused by market manipulation or other illegal behavior, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

In January, individual traders from online communities like Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum and users of popular online brokerage apps like Robinhood were a driving force behind the meteoric rise of a handful of previously unpopular stocks. The traders pitted themselves against major hedge funds who had bet that the price of stocks in struggling companies like GameStop, AMC Entertainment, and Blackberry would fall in a practice called short selling. The rapid surge of interest from retail investors pushed the price of those stocks to record levels, and hedge funds like Melvin Capital faced massive losses as a result. At the peak of the frenzy, Robinhood restricted trading on shares of GameStop and a handful of other stocks, prompting a swift backlash from lawmakers and multiple class-action lawsuits from traders who said they had missed out on gains.

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09/21/202004/12/2021

Article: Germany says FinCEN money laundering revelations are not new

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Germany says FinCEN money laundering revelations are not new

Holger Hansen and Andreas Rinke, 21 September 2020

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s finance ministry said on Monday that a slew of news reports about money laundering among global banks including Deutsche Bank DBKGn.DE did not appear to contain revelations which were unknown.

“To the best of our knowledge, the cases with a German connection have been dealt with and the necessary consequences have been drawn,” a spokeswoman said.

German regulator BaFin is a unit of Germany’s Finance Ministry.

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05/20/201603/09/2021

Article: Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign

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Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign

Dennis Romboy, 20 May 2016

Overstock.com founder and former CEO Patrick Byrne continues to fuel Jonathan Johnson’s campaign for governor with unprecedented amounts of cash.

Byrne dropped another $250,000 into the Republican candidate’s bank account this week, bringing his total personal contributions to $400,000 so far. He also gave another $200,000 to Johnson’s Promote Liberty PAC, with at least $50,000 of that going to the campaign.

Donations to Johnson, the Overstock board chairman, from other sources since the last reporting period in mid-April total about $47,000, according to financial disclosure reports. Continue reading “Article: Overstock founder Patrick Byrne fuels Jonathan Johnson gubernatorial campaign”

05/18/201005/20/2020

Article: Germany bans naked short-selling

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Germany bans naked short-selling

Holder Hansen, Andreas Rinke

Reuters, 18 May 2010

Germany, in an attack on the financial speculation on which it blames much of the euro zone’s debt crisis, on Tuesday announced a ban on some high-risk bets that prices of bonds and stocks will fall.

Analysts, however, were skeptical that Germany’s surprise move to ban some trades in a strategy known as naked short selling could be effective in taming market volatility, with one saying it suggested “desperation.”

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