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This in particular caught my eye !
In the U.S., investors and companies have separately gone to court to seek shares or compensation to seek retribution for the damaging practices of offshore companies, mostly engaged in illegal money laundering for organized crime figures in New York. Some of the members of organized crime families have managed to infiltrate the SEC, the CIA, the FBI and other government agencies and have had a revolving open door to the SEC since the first bootlegging Chairman, none other than Joseph Kennedy, took office in the 1930’s.
s caught my eye in particular.
Surely the basis to invoke at least a RICO investigation!
Is this beginning to look as if the SEC are not the accomplices but the fraudsters ?
Yes Lap a must read,
I picked this up from the MLXO board.
MLXO is the subject of toxic financing by Connel.
The goal of the victim company now becomes to avoid the 3 main goals of the naked short sellers, namely: bankruptcy, a reverse split, or the forced signing of a death spiral convertible debenture out of desperation. As long as the victim company can continue to pay the monthly burn rate, then the game plan becomes to make some of the strategic moves that hundreds of victim companies have been forced into doing which includes name changes, CUSIP # changes, cancel/reissue procedures, dividend distributions, amending of by-laws and Articles of Corporation, etc. Nevada domiciled companies usually cancel all of their shares in the system, both real and fake, and force shareholders and their b/ds (broker/dealers) to PROVE the ownership of the old "real" shares before they get a new "real" share. Many also file their civil suits at this time also."
Looks like it was Lap !
Humm think up a another one
Not so like the other one
Think up another one do ! LOL
Waddya tink of my bottom lines ?
Alengthy but worthwhile article from Financial Wire
It names names too !!
April 25, 2005 (FinancialWire) While the financial community waits for answers to new revelations that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission grandfathered “amnesty” to illegal market manipulators in the adoption of Regulation SHO, and how the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation has figured into admitted censorship of a newswire and suspected media tampering into the “indefinite postponement” of an expose on General Electric’s (NYSE: GE) “Dateline NBC,” new developments keep coming.
The DTCC activities are the most serious, since the agent of two SROs, the New York Stock Exchange and NASD is also peopled by some 21 directors whose companies, such as Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER), State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), are unlikely to support the DTCC in what attorney Marshal Shichtman, Esq., has termed “strong-arm” tactics.
Meanwhile, a former managing director of SG Cowen & Co., Guillaume Pollet, has been charged by the SEC with insider trading and fraud by short selling the stock of companies prior to the companies closing on PIPES – the private offering of stock – in which SG Cowan invested.
Pollet routinely sold short the publicly traded securities of these PIPE issuers prior to the close of the PIPE transaction in order to lock in gains for SG Cowen's proprietary account. As a result of Pollet's illicit trading, SG Cowen locked in over $4 million in trading profits, in addition to other gains SG Cowen made on the transactions. In several instances, SG Cowen also acted as the PIPE issuer's investment banker.
The Commission's complaint also alleges that, in several instances, Pollet's short selling was directly contrary to representations that SG Cowen made to PIPE issuers in connection with the PIPE transactions. For example, SG Cowen specifically represented to some of the PIPE issuers that SG Cowen would not short sell the securities of such issuer prior to the close of the PIPE transaction. SG Cowen also represented to each of the PIPE issuers that it was acquiring the PIPE securities with investment intent. SG Cowen made these representations at a time when Pollet had already started to short sell the securities of these PIPE issuers.
Mark K. Schonfeld, Director of the Commission's Northeast Regional Office, said, "While PIPE transactions may help a company meet its financing needs, they also create opportunities for fraud. This case sends the message that we will actively patrol this area so that issuers and investors alike can have confidence in these financing vehicles."
In a commentary, James Cramer, founder of TheStreet.com (NASDAQ: TSCM), cautioned that most small corporate CEOs are easy prey for hustlers.
“For years, when I have met privately with troubled companies, I have told them that under no circumstances should they ever succumb to a bank's wishes to place private equity money into their public structures. I have told them over and over again that the game is so rigged, the people you open up to will short your stock and the people they talk to will short your stock and you will have a vicious spiral down.
“To a person, these managers have criticized me for being paranoid, for being too suspicious and for being, well, nuts.
“Most CEOs have no idea how the stock market works. They are clueless. They have no idea how corrupt it can be, how dangerous it can be. This is a game for card sharps and for hustlers. It is a game where bankers are betting against you as they try to help you, where arbitragers and convertible-bond specialists crush you even as they claim to be in your camp.
“Every once in a while they get nailed; most of the time they get away with it. So they can prey again,” he noted.
In a wide-ranging letter to the DTCC, Robert J. Shapiro has charged statements made by Larry Thompson, DTCC Deputy General Counsel, were “inaccurate or misleading,” and asked the DTCC to correct the record and respond to his comments and questions.
Shapiro is chair of Sonecon LLC, a private economic advisory firm in Washington, D.C., who served as U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs from 1998 to 2001, Vice President and co-founder of the Progressive Policy Institute from 1989 to 1998, and principal economic advisor to Governor William J. Clinton in the 1991-1992 presidential campaign.
He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University and has been a Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, and the Brookings Institution.
Shapiro currently provides economic analysis to the law firms of O’Quinn, Laminack and Pirtle, Christian, Smith and Jewell, and Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel and Greenwood, on issues associated with naked short sales, which he noted includes “matters raised in an interview published by @DTCC with DTCC deputy general counsel Larry Thompson.”
He asserts the following in his letter:
Mr. Thompson begins by asserting that “the extent to which [naked short selling] occurs is in dispute.” While this statement may be narrowly correct, objective academic analysis has established that naked short selling has been a widespread practice and one which, when allowed to persist, can pose a threat to the integrity of equity markets. A recent study by Dr. Leslie Boni, then a visiting financial economist at the SEC, analyzed NSCC data and found that on three random days, an average of more than 700 listed stocks had failures-to-deliver of 60 million-to-120 million shares sold short – naked shorts – that had persisted for at least two months. In addition, over 800 unlisted stocks on any day had fails of 120 million-to-180 million shares sold short that also had persisted for at least two months. The total number of naked shorts, including those that had persisted for less than two months, was presumably considerably greater.
Regarding the extent of naked shorts, Mr. Thompson has provided closely-related additional information: “fails to deliver and receive amount to about $6 billion daily…including both new fails and aged fails.” Mr. Thompson minimizes this total by comparing it to “just under $400 billion in trades (emphasis added) processed daily by NSCC, or about 1.5% of the dollar volume.” By most people’s standards, a problem involving hundreds of millions of shares valued at $6 billion every day is a very large problem. Moreover, the $6 billion total substantially underestimates the actual value of all failed-to-deliver trades measured when the trades actually occurred. Most of the $6 billion total represents uncovered or naked short sales, many of which have gone undelivered for weeks or months with their market price being marked-to-market every day. As a stock’s price falls, the market price of naked shorts in that stock also declines, reducing the total value of the outstanding failures-to-deliver cited by Mr. Thompson.
In other respects, Mr. Thompson’s comparison to the “$400 billion in trades processed daily by NSCC” seems disingenuous and misleading, because that $400 billion total covers not only U.S. equity trades which can involve most of the failures-to-deliver at issue, but many other transactions also processed by the NSCC. The value of all equity transactions on U.S. markets in 2004, for example, averaged $82.3 billion/day. If Mr. Thompson is correct that the daily value of fails-to-deliver averages $6 billion, that total is equivalent to 7.2 percent of average daily equity trades or nearly five times the 1.5 percent level suggested by Mr. Thompson. Furthermore, the DTCC reports on its website that on a peak day, “through its Continuous Net Settlement (CNS) system, NSCC eliminated the need to settle 96 percent of total obligations.” Assuming that CNS nets out the same proportion of trades on other days, $384 billion of the $400 billion in daily trades cited by Mr. Thompson are netted out, leaving only $16 billion in daily trades that require the actual delivery of securities. The $6 billion of fails-to-deliver securities existing on any day are equivalent to 37.5 percent of the average daily trades that require the delivery of securities, or 25 times the 1.5 percent level cited by Mr. Thompson.
Mr. Thompson tries to explain the large numbers of shares that go undelivered – in most cases arising from naked short sales -- by citing problems with paper certificates, inevitable human error, and the legitimate operations of market makers. This also seems misleading or disingenuous. Regarding problems with paper certificates, the DTCC estimates that 97 percent of all stock certificates are now kept in electronic form. Nor can human error or legitimate market-making operations explain the high levels of failures-to-deliver that persist for months – on any day, an average of 180 million-to-300 million shares have gone undelivered for two months or longer – as documented by Dr. Boni’s analysis of NSCC data.
Mr. Thompson also disparages the attorneys who represent companies that have been damaged or destroyed by massive naked short sales, and their shareholders, by claiming falsely that the cases in this matter have almost all been dismissed or withdrawn. The legal firms that I advise -- O’Quinn, Petrie and Laminack; Christian, Smith and Jewell; and Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel and Greenwood – have not lost any motions against the DTCC or its affiliates and currently have one case against the DTCC pending in Nevada and another case against the DTCC pending in Arkansas. In addition, on February 24, 2005, these attorneys were granted an order by the New York Supreme Court ordering the DTCC to produce trading records involving two companies they represent, including records from the Stock Borrow program, which may establish whether large-scale naked short sales were used to manipulate and drive down the stock price of those two companies.
Mr. Thompson also asserts that the plaintiffs suing the DTCC for damages associated with the handling of naked short sales rely on “theories [that] are not an accurate reflection of how the capital market system actually works.” This assertion is inaccurate. There is no dispute about how the capital markets work -- nor any doubt that naked short sales have been used to manipulate and drive down the price of stocks, as seen in numerous death-spiral financing cases. The issue here is the DTCC’s role in allowing or facilitating such stock manipulation through its treatment of extended naked short sales.
In explaining the DTCC’s role in these matters, Mr. Thompson rejects the claim that the NSCC’s Stock Borrow program allows the same shares to be lent over and over again, potentially creating more shares than actually exist or “phantom” shares. By Mr. Thompson’s own account, shares borrowed by the NSCC to settle naked short sales are deducted from the lending member’s DTC account and credited to the DTC account of the member to whom the shares have been sold. Therefore, those same shares become available to be re-borrowed to settle another naked short sale and, if that happens, to be re-borrowed again and again to settle a succession of naked short sales. Throughout this process, the actual short sellers may continue to fail-to-deliver the shares to cover their shorts and, as Dr. Boni’s analysis of NSCC data found, the underlying failure can age for months or even years. The process which Mr. Thompson describes is one in which shares can be borrowed and lent over and over again, introducing more shares into the market than are legally registered and issued. If any ambiguity remains, Mr. Thompson can clarify it by responding to the following query: Once a share that has been borrowed through the NSCC Stock Borrow program is delivered to the purchaser, is that share restricted in any way so it cannot be lent again?
It is important to note that the Stock Borrow program is used when continuous net settlement cannot locate the shares to settle. As a consequence, Stock Borrow is usually called into play when there are relatively few shares available for borrowing. These are propitious conditions for market manipulation: Unscrupulous short sellers undertake large-scale naked short sales involving stocks for which few shares are available for trading and lending, relying on the Stock Borrow program to borrow the limited available shares, again and again, at sufficient levels to drive down the market price of the shares.
Mr. Thompson notes that of approximately $6 billion in outstanding failures-to-deliver existing on any day, “the Stock Borrow program is able to resolve about $1.1 billion … or about 20% [18 percent] of the total fail obligation.” In this statement, Mr. Thompson raises very serious questions about the integrity and operations of the NSCC and DTCC, which he can clarify by responding to the following queries: If the Stock Borrow program “resolves” only 18 percent of total fails, what is the disposition of the remaining 82 percent of outstanding fails? When failures-to-deliver occur that are not resolved through Stock Borrow, does the NSCC credit the undelivered shares to the member representing the buyer, creating genuine “phantom shares”? Finally, how many shares do the borrowing brokers, clearing firms and other participants in the Stock Borrow program owe the NSCC on a typical day, and what is their total value?
In a related matter, Mr. Thompson tries to distance the DTCC from charges that shares held in restricted accounts – for example, cash accounts, retirement accounts and many institutional accounts – are improperly lent through the Stock Borrow program by claiming that responsibility for segregating restricted shares from lendable shares falls to the “broker and bank members” of the DTCC, while responsibility for monitoring or regulating their performance in this matter falls to the stock exchanges and the SEC. As a trust company, the DTCC cannot hold that it has no role, duty or responsibility to ensure the probity of its operations. Mr. Thompson could address this issue by responding to the following queries: What procedures does the NSCC have to ensure that shares held in members’ accounts for possible loan through the NSCC Stock Borrow program are unencumbered by regulatory or legal restrictions from being pledged or assigned and eligible to be borrowed? On any given day, how many participants in the Stock Borrow program have lent shares that exceed their lendable shares, in what numbers and of what value?
Mr. Thompson also tries to distance the DTCC as far as possible from the naked short selling that generates most of the extended failures-to-deliver: “We don’t have any power or legal authority to regulate or stop short selling, naked or otherwise. We also have no power to force member firms to close out or resolve fails to deliver … we don’t even see whether a sale is short or not.” In fact, the DTCC chooses to not distinguish short sales from long sales, chooses to not regulate or stop extended naked short sales, and chooses to not force member firms to resolve protracted naked short sales.
First, Regulation SHO requires that all transactions be clearly marked short or long. If the DTCC and NSCC do not know whether sales are short or long as Mr. Thompson contends, they choose to not know. Second, the NSCC has a clear responsibility and adequate means to stop naked short sales of extended duration, with no legal barrier that would prevent them from so doing. As a trust company with an acknowledged duty to provide investors certainty in the settlement and clearance of equity transactions, the DTCC chose to carry out that duty by assuming the role of counterparty to both sides of every equity transaction, through the operations of the NSCC’s CNS system and the Stock Borrow program. By allowing short sellers to fail-to-deliver shares for months or even years, the NSCC clearly fails to provide certainty in settlement to the buyers, sellers and issuers of securities. Since it is widely known that extended naked short sales have been used to manipulate stock prices in cases of death-spiral financing, and the NSCC created the Stock Borrow program to address failures-to-deliver that prominently include naked short sales, the NSCC and DTCC share a responsibility with the SEC and the stock exchanges to protect investors by resolving extended fails.
Third, the DTCC and NSCC have the clear capacity to force member firms to resolve the extended failures-to-deliver of their customers by purchasing shares on the open market and deducting the cost from the member’s account. A 2003 study by Dr. Richard Evans and others provides evidence that forced buy-ins by any party occur very rarely. They found that a major options market maker who failed to deliver all or a portion of shares sold in 69,063 transactions in 1998-1999 was bought-in only 86 times or barely one-tenth of 1 percent of the fails. Mr. Thompson can clarify investors’ understanding of their operations by responding to the following query: What proportion of shares that are persistent fails-to-deliver, of one month or longer, are ever bought in?
Mr. Thompson acknowledges that the DTCC and NSCC know precisely how many failures-to-deliver exist for each stock and the precise duration of each of these fails. Yet, the DTCC refuses to disclose this information even to the issuer of the stock in question, which Mr. Thompson justifies by citing “NSCC rules” prohibiting such a release of data based on “the obvious reason that the trading data we receive could be used to manipulate the market, as well as reveal trading patterns of individual firms.” This response is both disingenuous and revealing. We know now, for the first time, that the DTCC has full knowledge of the extent of protracted, large-scale naked short sales in all particular cases. We also know now that the DTCC has had this information for at least a decade, since Mr. Thompson also notes that “fails, as a percentage of total trading, hasn’t changed in the last 10 years.” Yet, based on the DTCC’s own rules, it allowed these abuses to persist and fester. The DTCC and NSCC can change their rules at any time. Moreover, in this case, those rules are unjustified. Data documenting outstanding short sales in each stock are currently issued publicly, so further data on how many of those short sales are naked would not reveal additional information about the trading patterns of individual firms or in any way empower manipulators. In fact, the DTCC could substantially disarm manipulators by both publicly reporting naked short sales in each issue and pledging to force buy-ins of all naked short sales that persist for more than a limited period.
Surely, if large-scale, extended naked short sales have effectively created “phantom” shares, companies have a responsibility to their shareholders and the right to secure this information from the organization which manages the settlement of short sales. At a minimum, the DTCC should respond to requests by issuers for data on extended failures-to-deliver in their own stocks, both in the past and currently, so they can take steps to resist stock manipulators or bring them to account for past manipulation.
Mr. Thompson also claims that the DTCC did not create or manage the Stock Borrow program to serve its own financial interest, insisting that the service generates less than $2 million a year in direct fees to the DTCC and that all DTCC services are priced on a “not for profit” basis that seeks to match revenues with expenses. Without further information, these responses beg the question of whose private financial interest has been served by the Stock Borrow program, especially as the DTCC is owned by the stock markets, clearinghouses, brokerage and banking institutions that use its services. Mr. Thompson and the DTCC can clarify this serious matter by responding to the following queries: Do DTCC participant/owners receive interest or other payments through or from the Stock Borrow program for lending the shares of their customers and, if so, how much have they received for these activities over the last 10 years? Further, do DTCC participant/owners receive any dividend, interest or other payments or distributions from the DTCC or its subsidiaries?, Shapiro concluded.
In a recent editorial, Investrend Information head Gayle Essary questioned whether the board and principal shareholders would “be party to shenanigans that lead to the censorship or disabling of any media” that he says is “un-American activity.”
The DTCC’s letter to Investrend’s counsel, Marshal Shichtman, Esq., is posted at http://www.investrend.com/Admin/Topics/Articles/Resources/349_1113403487.pdf
Essary said that the arrogance the DTCC expressed in its censorship efforts shows that the entity has “become too large, too encompassing, too powerful, too unresponsive to those it serves, primarily the investing public, and too unresponsive to the Congress under whose auspices it should be operating.
“First, it is time to unconflict it, with real public representations on its board,” he said, and second, “it is time to break it up, with its various duties provided by smaller agencies under separate unconflicted boards.”
DTCC board members include Michael C. Bodson, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MWD); Gary Bullock, Global Head of Logistics, Infrastructure, UBS Investment Bank (NYSE: UBS); Stephen P. Casper, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer, Fischer Francis Trees & Watts, Inc.; Jill M. Considine,Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC);
Also, Paul F. Costello, President, Business Services Group, Wachovia Securities (NYSE: WB); John W. Cummings, Senior Vice President & Head of Global Technology & Services, Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER); Donald F. Donahue, Chief Operating Officer, The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC); Norman Eaker, General Partner, Edward Jones; George Hrabovsky, President, Alliance Global Investors Service; Catherine R. Kinney, President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, New York Stock Exchange; Thomas J. McCrossan, Executive Vice President, State Street Corporation (NYSE: STT); Bradley Abelow, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS); Jonathan E. Beyman, Chief Information Officer, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH); and Frank J. Bisignano, Chief Administrative Officer and Senior Executive Vice President, Citigroup / Solomon Smith Barney's Corporate Investment Bank (NYSE: C), Eileen K. Murray, Managing Director, Credit Suisse First Boston (NYSE: CSR); James P. Palermo, Vice Chairman, Mellon Financial Corporation (NYSE: MEL); Thomas J. Perna, Senior Executive Vice President, Financial Companies Services Sector of The Bank of New York (NYSE: BNY); Ronald Purpora, Chief Executive Officer, Garban LLC; Douglas Shulman, President, Regulatory Services and Operations, NASD; and Thompson M. Swayne, Executive Vice President, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM).
Art
I am fast coming to the conclusion that the FDA have a different agenda.
They are the inside traders of the drug world.
They make and break stocks of drug co's.
Dissaprove a drug the stock plummets.
Approve it 3 months later ........
Look at the re- approval of breast implants a couple of days ago.
(Yes lets look at breast implants ! LOL)
For novices got to
www.regogfalsies.com
Silicone re approved
Saline still dissaproved
Yet which will do the most harm?
Silicone cannot be absorbed (and causes the real problems) .
Saline can.
(Dontr be too rough on those falsy's guys!)
Then look at how many 'poodles' are on the FDA board of approval.
Where is this going ?
Only that the FDA are the market makers for a pharmactical stock I guess.
Is the FDA shorting and pumping ?
WOW is there a drug to combat paranonia and BS.
Yep but we cant market that one !
Damn pity !
Hummm just musing .....
GLTA
Bit quite here Rigs,
Has the ship sunk ? LOL !
GLTY
An interesting and plausable explanation.
What you are saying is that the Brokers will end up paying for the naked shorters fraud in essence .
So maybe there is some justice after all.
Could other companies in a similar position force a 'day of reckoning' too ?
I wonder if this might be some solution to the problem...
GLTY
UNQT should be running away up to 1 cent by now.
Heres the reason why it isnt ?
Union Equity Inc. (Pink Sheets:UNQT) encourages shareholders to request as much of their stock as possible be delivered to them in certificate form. This is being done to make it more difficult for market players to short the company's stock.
"I don't believe in the concept of shorting, I never have," said Union Equity CEO Michael Anthony. "If you are going to speculate in the market you should do so based on the belief that smaller business entities are going to become larger, more financially successful companies. The concepts of economic growth and entrepreneurial innovation are the backbone of the American way of life. Personally, I would never bet on the demise of any company."
According to a recent article by journalist Joel S. Hirschhorn, "Company stocks can be sold short. Shares are borrowed from brokers who actually have them (or can get them), transferred to the purchaser, and then returned to the lender by the short seller. The short seller sees a relatively high price in the stock market and bets that the price will decline significantly. Then the stock can be bought and returned to the original lender within three days. But `naked shorting' is different. No actual stock is borrowed and delivered to the purchaser, even though the purchaser pays the short seller. The investor believes that real stock has been delivered to their account. Naked short selling has been illegal since 1933, but it has still flourished."
Union Equity requests that shareholders contact their broker/dealers and request that their shares of company stock be delivered to them in certificate form in order to make it more difficult for short-sellers to borrow stock. Theoretically, if there are fewer shares out there for short-sellers to borrow, it makes it harder for them to achieve their objective.
In 2004 Regulation SHO (for "short") was promulgated in an attempt to curtail naked shorting.
In addition, Union Equity has recently approved a 600% dividend in the form of a six-for-one forward split of its common stock issued and outstanding as of 4/27/05 (the record date). Odd lots shall be rounded up. Shareholders of record on 4/27/05 will receive six additional shares for every one share of common stock owned on that date.
Seems the Company believes its stock is being naked shorted.
Must say it should be at least 1 cent by now.
Union Equity Inc. (Pink Sheets:UNQT) encourages shareholders to request as much of their stock as possible be delivered to them in certificate form. This is being done to make it more difficult for market players to short the company's stock.
"I don't believe in the concept of shorting, I never have," said Union Equity CEO Michael Anthony. "If you are going to speculate in the market you should do so based on the belief that smaller business entities are going to become larger, more financially successful companies. The concepts of economic growth and entrepreneurial innovation are the backbone of the American way of life. Personally, I would never bet on the demise of any company."
According to a recent article by journalist Joel S. Hirschhorn, "Company stocks can be sold short. Shares are borrowed from brokers who actually have them (or can get them), transferred to the purchaser, and then returned to the lender by the short seller. The short seller sees a relatively high price in the stock market and bets that the price will decline significantly. Then the stock can be bought and returned to the original lender within three days. But `naked shorting' is different. No actual stock is borrowed and delivered to the purchaser, even though the purchaser pays the short seller. The investor believes that real stock has been delivered to their account. Naked short selling has been illegal since 1933, but it has still flourished."
Union Equity requests that shareholders contact their broker/dealers and request that their shares of company stock be delivered to them in certificate form in order to make it more difficult for short-sellers to borrow stock. Theoretically, if there are fewer shares out there for short-sellers to borrow, it makes it harder for them to achieve their objective.
In 2004 Regulation SHO (for "short") was promulgated in an attempt to curtail naked shorting.
In addition, Union Equity has recently approved a 600% dividend in the form of a six-for-one forward split of its common stock issued and outstanding as of 4/27/05 (the record date). Odd lots shall be rounded up. Shareholders of record on 4/27/05 will receive six additional shares for every one share of common stock owned on that date.
An example of a company CEO trying to fight the shorters.
Union Equity Inc. (Pink Sheets:UNQT) encourages shareholders to request as much of their stock as possible be delivered to them in certificate form. This is being done to make it more difficult for market players to short the company's stock.
"I don't believe in the concept of shorting, I never have," said Union Equity CEO Michael Anthony. "If you are going to speculate in the market you should do so based on the belief that smaller business entities are going to become larger, more financially successful companies. The concepts of economic growth and entrepreneurial innovation are the backbone of the American way of life. Personally, I would never bet on the demise of any company."
According to a recent article by journalist Joel S. Hirschhorn, "Company stocks can be sold short. Shares are borrowed from brokers who actually have them (or can get them), transferred to the purchaser, and then returned to the lender by the short seller. The short seller sees a relatively high price in the stock market and bets that the price will decline significantly. Then the stock can be bought and returned to the original lender within three days. But `naked shorting' is different. No actual stock is borrowed and delivered to the purchaser, even though the purchaser pays the short seller. The investor believes that real stock has been delivered to their account. Naked short selling has been illegal since 1933, but it has still flourished."
Union Equity requests that shareholders contact their broker/dealers and request that their shares of company stock be delivered to them in certificate form in order to make it more difficult for short-sellers to borrow stock. Theoretically, if there are fewer shares out there for short-sellers to borrow, it makes it harder for them to achieve their objective.
In 2004 Regulation SHO (for "short") was promulgated in an attempt to curtail naked shorting.
In addition, Union Equity has recently approved a 600% dividend in the form of a six-for-one forward split of its common stock issued and outstanding as of 4/27/05 (the record date). Odd lots shall be rounded up. Shareholders of record on 4/27/05 will receive six additional shares for every one share of common stock owned on that date.
Resectorman
You ask some very good and valid questions.
Frankly I for one do not have the answers but I am forwarding your messgae to a couple who should know.
I think this is seems like a REAL example of what happens when the books have to be balanced and cant be because the stock has been naked (ly) shorted.
Please keep this board posted on what you find out and I will do likewise.
What the CIA are in it too?
Doesnt suprise me in the light of the Sandstorm Report on BCCI.
The CIA were launddering money through the said Bank.
Ref US Senate 'The Sandstorm Report'
Co authored by John Kerry !
Dirty dirty reading !
Belay that last lads and lasses ,
This is Financial terrorism
Report the SEC to Homeland Security !
The're the Big Bosses now ........
As has been the case so many times in the past, it was not the SEC that picked up Pollet’s illegal trading activities but, in this case, SG Cowen’s internal compliance department identified the activities and notified the SEC in late 2001 of the problems. SG Cowen terminated Pollet in December of 2001 based on the activities.
Contemplating this.
It seems to me that this is racketeering on a vast scale under the RICO ACT.
Perhaps we should call the Feds in on the SEC who seem to be a part if not arguably the perpetrators !!
Barter,
I am coming to the same conclusion you have reached.
Only 180 co's ?!!
This thing is bigger than the SHO list.
A couple of the German Xchanges which are noted for harboring shorters.
Companies I see listed here and there raises a red flag with me.
My daily reality check on 9/11 ++
www.whatreallyhappened.com
I dont read the US papers anymore.
The site Lap sent you is concerning to say the least.
Then read about the Silverstein lease and insurance claim on the WTC buildings. (Read the summary of the courts verdict)
Send me a private message if you want the dots connecting a bit more.
GLTY
An interesting e mail came this morning........
If this doesnt kick the numbers up a notch not sure what will !
You can all sign up through me too !! LOL
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Let\'s say Bob refers Bill, who generates $200 in auction fees - Bob gets
$20 for the referral fee.
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Powerful stuff Bartermania
The numbers involved are frightening.
This subject is actually keeping me far more liquid than I would perhaps want to be in a 'fair' market.
Lap
you have set me a problem.
How do I come up with a neat signature ?
GLTA
Argyll,
Methinks thou doth protest too much !
As well as too often and too loudly !
And something is not right in the State of Denmark either !
Humm,
Well during the time I had the call in and was waiting for an answer and was told I could trade, over the phone but not on line, at that moment the price dropped 6 cents !
Coincidence ?
Blatant manipulation?
Just tried to deal in a few.
Have a call in to find out why they wouldnt accept my order.
Thats the second time this month a run has been halted and trading stopped.
Seems they have halted trading.
Anyone know why ?
Thanks
Nice one EZ ,, LOL
There actually is a toejam site !!
Nanosolar
Interesting but do read this.
There seems to be some scepticism regarding their cost per watt claims.
http://blog.monkeysign.net/monkeysign/2005/04/more_on_nanosol.html
This looks useful in tracking shorted stocks.
Maybe it might find a place on your header Barter ?
http://www.buyins.net/tools/new_listings.php?PHPSESSID=8cc2f671d4be2ae92ef3b7889aeb8e58
And a very good read it was too Juststocks
Thanks
Bashers
As if to confirm that Watney,
I read a great post (will try to find it) this morning which named names and could easily be entitled
Confessions of a Basher
I am not sure about posting it here but, bashing should be part of an investors 'education'
Maybe a
< Know your Basher > Board ?
With a denouncer list of Basher 'handles'
might be useful to this community?
An interesting if not lengthy post from Justocks and Laptoptraders board.
If we can break the code then we might have a chance against them?
Maybe !
Grand Overview of Naked Short selling;
There’s a form of the securities fraud known as naked short selling that is becoming very popular and lucrative to the market makers that practice it. It is known as “Cellar boxing” and it has to do with the fact that the NASD and the SEC had to arbitrarily set a minimum level at which a stock can trade. This level was set at $.0001 or one-one hundredth of a penny. This level is appropriately referred to as “the cellar”. This $.0001 level can be used as a "backstop" for all kinds of market maker and naked short selling manipulations.
“Cellar boxing” has been one of the security frauds du jour since 1999 when the market went to a “decimalization” basis. In the pre-decimalization days the minimum market spread for most stocks was set at 1/8th of a dollar and the market makers were guaranteed a healthy “spread”. Since decimalization came into effect, those one-eighth of a dollar spreads now are often only a penny as you can see in Microsoft’s quote throughout the day. Where did the unscrupulous MMs go to make up for all of this lost income? They headed "south" to the OTCBB and Pink Sheets where the protective effects from naked short selling like Rule 10-a, and NASD Rules 3350, 3360, and 3370 are nonexistent.
The unique aspect of needing an arbitrary “cellar” level is that the lowest possible incremental gain above this cellar level represents a 100% spread available to MMs making a market in these securities. When compared to the typical spread in Microsoft of perhaps four-tenths of 1%, this is pretty tempting territory. In fact, when the market is no bid to $.0001 offer there is theoretically an infinite spread.
In order to participate in “cellar boxing”, the MMs first need to pummel the price per share down to these levels. The lower they can force the share price, the larger are the percentage spreads to feed off of. This is easily done via garden variety naked short selling. In fact if the MM is large enough and has enough visibility of buy and sell orders as well as order flow, he can simultaneously be acting as the conduit for the sale of nonexistent shares through Canadian co-conspiring broker/dealers and their associates with his right hand at the same time that his left hand is naked short selling into every buy order that appears through its own proprietary accounts. The key here is to be a dominant enough of a MM to have visibility of these buy orders. This is referred to as "broker/dealer internalization" or naked short selling via "desking" which refers to the market makers trading desk. While the right hand is busy flooding the victim company's market with "counterfeit" shares that can be sold at any instant in time the left hand is nullifying any upward pressure in share price by neutralizing the demand for the securities. The net effect becomes no demonstrable demand for shares and a huge oversupply of shares which induces a downward spiral in share price.
In fact, until the "beefed up" version of Rule 3370 (Affirmative determination in writing of "borrowability" by settlement date) becomes effective, U.S. MMs have been "legally" processing naked short sale orders out of Canada and other offshore locations even though they and the clearing firms involved knew by history that these shares were in no way going to be delivered. The question that then begs to be asked is how "the system" can allow these obviously bogus sell orders to clear and settle. To find the answer to this one need look no further than to Addendum "C" to the Rules and Regulations of the NSCC subdivision of the DTCC. This gaping loophole allows the DTCC, which is basically the 11,000 b/ds and banks that we refer to as "Wall Street”, to borrow shares from those investors naive enough to hold these shares in "street name" at their brokerage firm. This amounts to about 95% of us. Theoretically, this “borrow” was designed to allow trades to clear and settle that involved LEGITIMATE 1 OR 2 DAY delays in delivery. This "borrow" is done unbeknownst to the investor that purchased the shares in question and amounts to probably the largest "conflict of interest" known to mankind. The question becomes would these investors knowingly loan, without compensation, their shares to those whose intent is to bankrupt their investment if they knew that the loan process was the key mechanism needed for the naked short sellers to effect their goal? Another question that arises is should the investor's b/d who just earned a commission and therefore owes its client a fiduciary duty of care, be acting as the intermediary in this loan process keeping in mind that this b/d is being paid the cash value of the shares being loaned as a means of collateralizing the loan, all unbeknownst to his client the purchaser.
An interesting phenomenon occurs at these "cellar" levels. Since NASD Rule 3370 allows MMs to legally naked short sell into markets characterized by a plethora of buy orders at a time when few sell orders are in existence, a MM can theoretically "legally" sit at the $.0001 level and sell nonexistent shares all day long because at no bid and $.0001 ask there is obviously a huge disparity between buy orders and sell orders. What tends to happen is that every time the share price tries to get off of the cellar floor and onto the first step of the stairway at $.0001 there is somebody there to step on the hands of the victim corporation's market.
Once a given micro cap corporation is “boxed in the cellar” it doesn’t have a whole lot of options to climb its way out of the cellar. One obvious option would be for it to reverse split its way out of the cellar but history has shown that these are counter-productive as the market capitalization typically gets hammered and the post split share price level starts heading back to its original pre-split level.
Another option would be to organize a sustained buying effort and muscle your way out of the cellar but typically there will, as if by magic, be a naked short sell order there to meet each and every buy order. Sometimes the shareholder base can muster up enough buying pressure to put the market at $.0001 bid and $.0002 offer for a limited amount of time. Later the market makers will typically pound the $.0001 bids with a blitzkrieg of selling to wipe out all of the bids and the market goes back to no bid and $.0001 offer. When the weak-kneed shareholders see this a few times they usually make up their mind to sell their shares the next time that a $.0001 bid appears and to get the heck out of Dodge. This phenomenon is referred to as “shaking the tree” for weak-kneed investors and it is very effective.
At times the market will go to $.0001 bid and $.0003 offer. This sets up a juicy 200% spread for the MMs and tends to dissuade any buyers from reaching up to the "lofty" level of $.0003. If a $.0002 bid should appear from a MM not "playing ball" with the unscrupulous MMs, it will be hit so quickly that Level 2 will never reveal the existence of the bid. The $.0001 bid at $.0003 offer market sets up a "stalemate" wherein market makers can leisurely enjoy the huge spreads while the victim company slowly dilutes itself to death by paying the monthly bills with "real" shares sold at incredibly low levels. Since all of these development-stage corporations have to pay their monthly bills, time becomes on the side of the naked short sellers.
At times it almost seems that the unscrupulous market makers are not actively trying to kill the victim corporation but instead want to milk the situation for as long of a period of time as possible and let the corporation die a slow death by dilution. The reality is that it is extremely easy to strip away 99% of a victim company’s share price or market cap and to keep the victim corporation “boxed“ in the cellar, but it really is difficult to kill a corporation especially after management and the shareholder base have figured out the game that is being played at their expense.
As the weeks and months go by the market makers make a fortune with these huge percentage spreads but the net aggregate naked short positions become astronomical from all of this activity. This leads to some apprehension amongst the co-conspiring MMs. The predicament they find themselves in is that they can’t even stop naked short selling into every buy order that appears because if they do the share price will gap and this will put tremendous pressures on net capital reserves for the MMs and margin maintenance requirements for the co-conspiring hedge funds and others operating out of the more than 13,000 naked short selling margin accounts set up in Canada. And of course covering the naked short position is out of the question since they can’t even stop the day-to-day naked short selling in the first place and you can't be covering at the same time you continue to naked short sell.
What typically happens in these situations is that the victim company has to massively dilute its share structure from the constant paying of the monthly burn rate with money received from the selling of “real” shares at artificially low levels. Then the goal of the naked short sellers is to point out to the investors, usually via paid “Internet bashers”, that with the, let’s say, 50 billion shares currently issued and outstanding, that this lousy company is not worth the $5 million market cap it is trading at, especially if it is just a shell company whose primary business plan was wiped out by the naked short sellers’ tortuous interference earlier on.
The truth of the matter is that the single biggest asset of these victim companies often becomes the astronomically large aggregate naked short position that has accumulated throughout the initial “bear raid” and also during the “cellar boxing” phase. The goal of the victim company now becomes to avoid the 3 main goals of the naked short sellers, namely: bankruptcy, a reverse split, or the forced signing of a death spiral convertible debenture out of desperation. As long as the victim company can continue to pay the monthly burn rate, then the game plan becomes to make some of the strategic moves that hundreds of victim companies have been forced into doing which includes name changes, CUSIP # changes, cancel/reissue procedures, dividend distributions, amending of by-laws and Articles of Corporation, etc. Nevada domiciled companies usually cancel all of their shares in the system, both real and fake, and force shareholders and their b/ds to PROVE the ownership of the old “real” shares before they get a new “real” share. Many also file their civil suits at this time also. This indirect forcing of hundreds of U.S. micro cap corporations to go through all of these extraneous hoops and hurdles as a means to survive, whether it be due to regulatory apathy or lack of resources, is probably one of the biggest black eyes the U.S. financial systems have ever sustained. In a perfect world it would be the regulators that periodically audit the “C” and “D” sub-accounts at the DTCC, the proprietary accounts of the MMs, clearing firms, and Canadian b/ds, and force the buy-in of counterfeit shares, many of which are hiding behind altered CUSIP #s, that are detected above the Rule 11830 guidelines for allowable “failed deliveries” of one half of 1% of the shares issued. U.S. micro cap corporations should not have to periodically “purge” their share structure of counterfeit electronic book entries but if the regulators will not do it then management has a fiduciary duty to do it.
A lot of management teams become overwhelmed with grief and guilt in regards to the huge increase in the number of shares issued and outstanding that have accumulated during their “watch”. The truth however is that as long as management made the proper corporate governance moves throughout this ordeal then a huge number of resultant shares issued and outstanding is unavoidable and often indicative of an astronomically high naked short position and is nothing to be ashamed of. These massive naked short positions need to be looked upon as huge assets that need to be developed. Hopefully the regulators will come to grips with the reality of naked short selling and tactics like "Cellar boxing" and quickly address this fraud that has decimated thousands of U.S. micro cap corporations and the tens of millions of U.S. investors therein."
Most likely not the Aurora as she was launched in 1813 and the cannons are dated 1813.
Cannon are not to best indicators to provenance a wreck.
They were taken as 'prizes' and added to another ships armaments sometimes.
ANS may even signify American Naval Ship.!
The '4' is likely to be the weight ie 4 = hundredweight.
Cannons sometimes broke lose and went overboard in a storm.
Cast overboard or dumped overboard to lighten a vessel aground.
The ships Bell is the trophy to a salvor enabling a good claim to be laid to a salvage title.
I have been very impressed with the TA Gurus we are lucky to have together here.
Next week will be very interesting.
The 'emotional/anticipation' factor of seeing the actual pics of a (scaled down) strat is difficult to predict but I have a feeling that for a day or two at least that will defy any TA. dramatically.
This is where TA may go out of the window perhaps.
As I say it will be an interesting week ahead.
GLTA
Havent seen that either Lap,
Very interesting.
Looking at signing up and throwing away my UK and EU mobiles ! (US too?)
Rocky should have this site on the GTEL header !??
Bartermania
Perhaps this site might be useful on the headers
http://bobosrevenge.blogspot.com/
A good (bad!)read.
Well resourced and researched.
The problem may be bigger than we thought ...........
Summary: The U.S. government is manipulating all major U.S. financial markets—stocks, treasuries, currencies. This article shows how it is possible and how it is done, why it is done, who specifically is doing it, when they do it, and where they get the money to do it.
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/reality/2005/0403.html
Dateline Stockgate Update: POSTPONED YET AGAIN!
by Mark Faulk
It's official: Representatives at Dateline have confirmed that the Stockgate segment originally scheduled for Sunday, April 10th, at 7 pm ET, HAS BEEN POSTPONED. According to Dateline, the segment will definitely still air, but that because of scheduling conflicts that have arisen due to the death of the Pope, the Stockgate segment schedule has been pushed back. A Dateline official confirmed that special segments that aired at the time of the Pope's death has caused a "major reshuffling of the entire Dateline schedule". Dateline producer Sharon Hoffman said that, "It has been a very busy news cycle, and Dateline is always subject to change." They have not yet announced a new air date for the show.
Instead, according to the Dateline website, they will air a segment in which "NBC's Al Roker sits down with 'American Idol' star Ruben Studdard to discuss his latest gospel album and how his life has changed since beating Clay Aiken on the second season of 'American Idol.'" Wow! An interview with last year's American Idol winner. It HAS been a busy news cycle!
Once again, this raises the usual questions about how committed Dateline is to this story, and after postponements and cancellations that have kept this off the air for over a year, those concerns are valid. While Dateline officials assured us that they "will air the segment", the major media has been stepping up the pressure over the past few weeks, releasing a flurry of articles on the naked short selling scandal that has plagued the stock market for years.
As for the Dateline segment, according to representatives with Koerner Kronenfeld Partners, who are the communications directors for attorneys O’Quinn, Laminack & Pirtle, Christian, Smith, Wukoson and Jewell, and Heard, Robins, Cloud, Lubel & Greenwood, the law firms representing clients in dozens of lawsuits filed against the SEC, the DTCC, and several of the country's largest brokerage firms, Dateline producer Sharon Hoffman has spent the week fact-checking and editing the story. We have also heard several unsubstantiated rumors that the DTCC has been pressuring Dateline to change or not air the story at all, and that Dateline is doing additional fact-checking as a result. We'll update that information as the story continues to develop.
So there you have it: one more delay on the story that has been called "been called the biggest financial scandal in the history of the world, with incurred losses estimated by some experts at well over $1 trillion dollars." Instead, it's beginning to look like everyone will be treated to a hard-hitting interview with American Idol teddy bear Ruben Studdard. Enjoy. We'll keep you posted, and that's the Faulking Truth.
Sower re Simon Scott
Please post the link
Thanks
William,
Actually appreciate your commentary today,
You calls are impressive !
Thanks
Just an add to Caradocs post,
An agreement has been entered into with Australian partners.
What can GTEL and a few Strats do for OZ?
Australia has a vast outback community.
The kids are schooled via shortwave radio.
A Strat will enable outback kids to be 'on line' to a 'virtual' classroom.
And remote communities to be in touch by phone for the first time.
It will do much to open up the outback which is about 80% of the continent.
HYSN
An explanation for the trading halt yesterday.
Seems they will be compliant on or before 20th April.
http://www.hsni.us/prnews/PressRelease040505_morning.pdf
Is a
Weeeeeeeeeeeee
allowed here !
Very Un TA of course !!