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The bigger problem is this:
The hedgies and others who control the prices of small and medium sized companies have all the tools they need at their disposal to continue to win, no matter what. Ten years ago, we would have seen a short squeeze of massive proportions. But not today. Being able to short on downticks, availing themselves of options market-maker exceptions and avoiding any serious punishment for the non-delivery of stock sold, they continue to win, while we lose. Today, even if you are right, it is likely you will not make money or, at best, make less than you would have, had the playing field be level.
I think it time for thinking people to be outraged by this charade of a market.
AMR...Barclays "Bangalore Equities Newsdesk". Do you know this for a fact? Link?
OD..Just got another email from my friend who said it was a rag called "streetinsider". He said that Bloomberg was going to pull the story.
OD...with the normal tax rate of 35%, earnings would have been around .43.
Also, a broker friend just told me that Bloomberg is running a piece that IDCC missed. They are saying should have been .63 on $88.56M! Could somebody check this out? TIA.
centerline: The cover-ups on Wall Street, the blind eye of the SEC, government corruption. When will it stop? How many of you have Mutual Funds for 20 years that are worth no more then when you invested in them. How many have been sold on the fund (flavor of the month) that tanked and were never advised properly to move your money. Investing LONG has become a joke. This is no longer investing. Electronic trading has killed the LONG. I know, I am venting again. TRUST can not exist anymore.
I agree with all of this but your rant prior to this statement, NOT.
Yah...Nah. You make no sense.
Glenny..let's hope so. I have always thought they would be the best fit. I also wouldn't mind owning aapl stock, although it would more likely be cash, IMO.
Interesting that this "report" only mentions Samsung and ITC by name, which are, IMO, the least likely purchasers. Nothing about Apple, Intel, Microsoft, Google, etc. Like I said, I still think it is an act of desperation. We'll know soon.
This 11th hour act of desperation leads me to think that the earnings are good or there will be some sort of positive announcement with the earnings. They were only able to cover 1.4M with the last hatchet job. Running out of time. IMO
last time they pulled this BS, the shorts were able to cover 1.4M shares.
mainelefty, OT
It is unnecessary because anyone wishing to only achieve the economic outcome of a short can have resort to options markets without the need to create the possibility of manipulation.
Yes, but taking the options route would create risk. Selling shares that don't exist OR marking a trade as a long sale when no shares are involved IS RISK FREE. It is free money.. They take the cash and the buyer has nothing.
huibs....I appreciate your response but I think you are pretty much alone in your understanding. "We get it". I don't think so, but I am with you. Any money, after 17 years, that I take out of IDCC will not be "reinvested". GLTA.
Jeff..Thanks for the response.. The big problem is two-fold: 1) FINRA was organized by and is controlled by the brokerages. 2) Those shares that didn't exist are still in the system. You and/or I may "own" some of them. I still maintain this is the biggest financial crime that has ever been perpetrated in the history of our country. This is what OWS is all about except that they don't understand the mechanics of the theft. They just know it is happening.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/finra-fines-ubs-securities-12-million-for-regulation-sho-violations-and-supervisory-failures-2011-10-25
I have posted similar links to the one above with virtually no response. Does anybody here get it???
Let me spell it out: UBS was fined $12M for allowing MILLIONS of orders (i.e., BILLIONS of shares) to be either mismarked (long instead of short) or sold short without any reasonable expectation of being located and delivered. So, follow me on this, there are billions of shares (just from UBS) that are in the system. Billions of shares that people (you and I) thought that we bought. We produced the $$ but the ACTUAL shares were never delivered. This is getting very frustrating. DOES ANYONE UNDERSTAND?
Close to 10 years ago, when Serono, in an effort to get a bigger piece of the pediatric growth hormone market, teamed up with Bioject to offer a needle-free option, the combination of the injection technology and the injectable had to be approved by the FDA despite the fact that the injection technology AND the HGH were both approved. (Serono's market share went from something like 6% to 20% within 2-3 years). This is and has been an ongoing issue for Bioject. They have approved technology for delivery of injectables but, the FDA in their infinite wisdom, seem to be saying that every application has to be approved when it is used with Bioject's (approved) solution.
Things that make one go hmmmmm.
I have no idea of the present value of these technologies. Could be equal to the current market cap. Who knows?? But, I don't understand why you still own the stock (if you do). Like I have said before, I don't have to be right and don't care if I'm wrong. It's all about the money, and I believe it will be substantial.
Flyboy... partial sale now. With "strategic alternative" continuing. I think the sale of the (X)G portfolio is pending the results from CAFC. This is why they are continuing to exclude conference calls. AIMO.
Flyboy....and this is the shortest advance notice of earnings reporting in the 17 years I've held the stock. My guess is that a deal is close or has been reached for part of the Company. IMO, it will be the bandwidth and compression technologies. These technologies have little, if anything, to do with the patents that are at issue with the ITC.
While the outcome of the ITC appeal will not have a significant impact on the ultimate value of the associated IP, it probably is significant enough to a potential buyer to know what that outcome is. The bandwidth and compression technologies, and perhaps M2M, can be separated out and sold now. A carrier (VZ or ATT), chip maker (Intel) or operating system owner (MSFT) would be the most likely, IMO.
OT...dmiller. You could be the last person on earth who believes in the "efficient market" theory.
Junk...IMO. A very accurate depiction of the issue at hand. Bioject has been delivering jet injections for flu vaccines for 10 years. Now that they are getting some visibility, my cynicism tells me that entities who don't want needle-free to succeed may have put a bug in the FDA's ear. I doubt that the FDA came up with this "communication" on their own. Just another example of the fact that one can never depend on the FDA.
I agree...and it is just as likely that the process is moving quite rapidly and they are getting the earnings out ASAP in the interest of FD.
JimLur...Shucks...I was looking forward to his updates on how his short position is faring.
M-Cam report. What incredible irony! They start off depicting IDCC as one of those greedy companies that are the focus of OWS. The reality is that IDCC has been and still is the victim of those very practices that have sucked money out of everyone's pocket. OWS is furious about this. They just don't understand the process.
I have said this before and I'll say it again. There are many undelivered shares of many companies in the system. They are there as a result of non-delivery of shares that unwary, trusting investors thought (and still think) they bought. This crime goes unnoticed until a company gets bought out. The constant pressure on the stock price and the numerous "reports" of IDCC being overvalued have nothing to do with the current state of the potential sale nor the value of the company. Rather, the criminals who "sold" these non-existent shares are trying to "wash" them out of the system lest they have to come up with the money that the phantom shareholders will demand when a buyout price is announced.
Yes, there are 8M shares short. These legitimate shorts can be hedged with options. I do not know of anyway to hedge phantom shares.
Lando.....Is there ANY way for the new investor to find a hint that there are a lot of "undeliverable" shares stacked in the marketplace? ANY way to find a hint that a company is being manipulated before the investor buys the stock?
The author seems to think that there are no hints available.
New investor???.....some of the most seasoned, experienced investors, many on this board, don't even believe it is happening. So educating a new investor? Maybe it would be easier!
RE: hint that a company is being manipulated. I'll give you this hint: Manipulation IS the system.
If you are a new investor, hold your money. Change is coming fairly soon. IMO.
Thanks for the softball!
For those having an interest in NSS and the "settlement problem" we have in our markets, this is a pretty good summation of where we are at:
Dr. Jim DeCosta says:
October 16, 2011 at 12:08 pm
I feel bad for the legitimate members of the “occupy Wall Street” crowd trying to do their best to first comprehend and then bring to light abusive naked short selling crimes. I will guarantee, however, that they will not find a better example of Wall Street billionaire behemoths leveraging their superior financial resources in order to directly pick the pockets of Main Street investors. In a nutshell I’d summarize abusive naked short selling (ANSS) as boiling down to this: the daily “netting out” of failed delivery obligations via entering into “ex-clearing arrangements” outside of the DTCC or inside of the DTC and NSCC and the marking to market of the monetary value of these failed delivery obligations on a daily basis has absolutely nothing to do with the “prompt settlement” of all securities transactions mandated in Section 17A of the ’34 Exchange Act.
The “settlement” of a securities transaction mandates the “good form delivery” of that which the investor thought he was purchasing. This precludes the use of self-replenishing lending pools like that at the NSCC’s “stock borrow program”. “Good form delivery” of U.S. securities cannot be accomplished by tallying delivery failures, hiding their existence from the investing public and then making the sellers of nonexistent shares merely collateralize these debts on a daily basis.
The OTC markets for development stage U.S. corporations unlucky enough to be targeted for destruction are constantly being “rigged” to go nowhere but down in price. In our markets you need not deliver the securities that you sold before gaining access to the money of the buyer of those (nonexistent) securities. Powerful industry lobbyists succeeded in removing the “withholding the mark” (buyer’s funds) mandates.
Nearly all clearance and settlement securities on the planet with the notable exceptions of ours and that in Canada are based on “delivery versus payment” or DVP. You don’t gain access to the buyer’s money UNTIL you deliver that which you sold. All the DTCC asks, however, is that you collateralize the monetary value of your failed delivery obligation on a daily marked to market basis. In fact, just last month the DTCC FINALLY launched an initiative to move on to a DVP system within the next couple of years. One can only imagine the intensity of these attacks ratcheting up before that deadline occurs and a level playing field is accessible.
As the readily sellable “security entitlements” that result from each and every “delivery refusal” invisibly pile up in the shares structure of corporations targeted for destruction then the money of the investor will flow to the sellers of even nonexistent securities despite nothing ever being delivered. It’s sometimes hard to grasp the heinous nature of these crimes but keep in mind that what is being sold does not even exist. Unfortunately, the laws of supply and demand still dictate share prices through the “price discovery” process in our markets. Billionaire behemoths on Wall Street can easily collateralize even astronomically high naked short positions and thus manipulate the readily sellable “supply” variable upwards which leads to the share price and the associated collateralization requirements being manipulated downwards.
Since the criminals that sell nonexistent shares for a living absolutely refuse to deliver that which they sold then these failed delivery obligations need to be forcibly “bought-in” so that the purchasers of shares can finally get receipt of that which they bought and these trades can finally “settle”. Forced buy-ins are the only source of meaningful deterrence to the commission of these crimes in the first place and the only option available when the sellers of securities absolutely refuse to deliver that which they sold.
Our SROs and regulators are currently caught in “cover-up” mode. Forced buy-ins of refused to be delivered shares will drive share prices up to previously unmanipulated levels and perhaps beyond. These will alert the investment world that many of their historical investments in development stage securities never had a chance to succeed. The sad reality is that the SROs and the regulators cannot be in robust “investor protection” mode and “cover-up” mode simultaneously. It’s impossible.
The choice then becomes to either immediately buy-in the delivery failures of the corporations that have survived these attacks or continue on in “cover-up” mode and refuse to warn investors in sometimes mortally wounded development stage corporations (that just so happen to provide our nation’s job growth engine) that the company they are investing in might have already been all but preordained to die an early death. Note the tragedy involved when the congressionally mandated providers of investor protection not only refuse to do their job while in “cover-up” mode they actually facilitate the commission of these crimes against new investors that they refuse to give a “heads up” to.
The main question that arises in this family of securities frauds is this: which is the bigger crime? Is it the continued oversight by SROs and regulators of the downward share price manipulation of the shares of easy to kill development stage U.S. corporations or is it the refusal to inform prospective investors, before the buy button is pushed, of the enormous amounts of readily sellable “security entitlements” poisoning the share structure of certain corporations that may have already been preordained to die an early death?
The single best assessment of the up to the minute current level of corruption in our markets is that something as obvious as mandated buy-ins STILL has not yet been instituted. WHY ARE THESE CRIMINALS BEING PROTECTED? (Please don’t cite this wonderful provision of “liquidity” they theoretically accomplish). Mandated buy-ins of archaic delivery “refusals” are like heat-seeking missiles. The criminals are easily identified. The bill for the buy-in will fall directly into their lap. The punishment is metered out in proportion to the level of the criminal behavior. The innocent are protected. The buyers finally get delivery of that which they paid for and the trades finally are allowed to “settle” albeit not very “promptly”. WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE, ROBUST INVESTOR PROTECTION AND A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD OR CONTINUE ON IN COVER-UP MODE AND THE LIST OF THOSE BEING DEFRAUDED EXTENDS ON TO WHO KNOWS WHERE?
Mr. Kenswift....Sorry can't let your post go by without comment. "How low can this thing go"? Really! The stock has doubled in the past few months. "Will start giving up hope". What is happening now is the most hope BJCT shareholders have had in years.
While your post reeks of one who is short, I find it hard to believe anyone would be ballsy enough to short a 25 cent stock that has recently become profitable. So what is your angle? Is it possible you are a MM who has shorted more stock than, he now realizes, can be bought back. Is that legal? A MM on a chat board?
Junk...Yes and no. Q3 will include the shipments for initial stocking of the stores. In my estimation, I can't see where this is going to be more than an incremental $200K or so, top line. The big question for the future is acceptance of the technology. If it is well-received then EVERY pharmacy and mega-store will have to have it. Then, it is not a big step for other applications. The result of this mini-foray into the mainstream is extremely huge for the future. So experiential data is key in determining our chance for success.
gabeh....All very true. Be sure to remind everyone on the board if earnings are released and they are below expectations. The shorts will be all over it.
What we really need is a little DD. There must be someone on this board who resides in the Northwest or the Southeast. If not, friends, relatives? We need to get direct feedback from those who opt for the needle-free option.
Anyone.... I had not seen this update of September 20 by Barclay's. Does anyone know if there have been any updates since?
Barclays Capital raises their AAPL tgt to $555 from $515 saying on the back of their recent trip to Asia and checks within retail, their research continues to point to upside for iPhones, iPads, and Macs - even as the economy softens.
Firm notes the economy is a major concern for all companies but macro events don't seem to be impacting Apple's ascension as the primary disruptive force in hardware.
They continue to believe that Apple is the primary beneficiary of the "consumerization of IT" trend, while also enjoying defensive characteristics in terms of cash flow, net cash and valuation.
Of course the "Chinese Wall" would preclude M and A people from communicating with the sell-side guys (TIC), but still, knowing what a negative it would be for Apple if they didn't prevail in the IDCC "auction", seems like Barclays doesn't see any negatives on the horizon for AAPL. HMMM.
THE_NET... "One more rumor is solved"...Can you elaborate on that? TIA
Anyone got the short interest report? Supposed to be disseminated today, but not available on the site I usually go to
The fact that there have been NO leaks lends credence to Apple having, at least, the inside track. They and IDCC are two of the tightest-lipped companies I've ever come across.
http://coupmedia.org/investments/naked-shorting-fraud-stealing-from-america-0610
Some nice Holiday weekend reading.
OT...badger I had a similar experience. It was painful. eom.
badger....agree on all points. One caveat I would add on the selling of puts is: do the math! Really understand how much one has to pony up if you end up owning the stock. When writing calls, If the stock goes way above the strike price all you lose is opportunity. When writing puts, if the stock goes way below the strike price you can end up with a big paper loss and a stock you wish you didn't own.. Big difference. MO.
OT badger....do you think they can close IDCC on the strike price of $47.50 just for fun? The confusion may be in the grammar. If you had said: "just for fun, we'll see if..." you can probably see why I wrote what I wrote. Anyway, what I meant was the monthly and now weekly manipulation of IDCC's (and many other stocks') at option expiration is just normal business, a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose maneuver for the scoundrels. If one consistently does something successfully it ceases to be fun. Making money, for you and me, is fun because it doesn't happen all the time. LOL.
badger...Trust me. The monthly, and now weekly, pegging of IDCC's stock price at expiration is not done for fun.
wayhaw...Absolutely could be what is happening and, my guess is what is happening. Necessarily, could take more time than some here are figurin'.
ciciagt....Thanks for the PM. Could you send me your email? TIA