Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
the 200ma here is 1.62. The hype created the crazy pps we have here. Yes they have wally world. BUT they still LOSE money. buying this for speculation is great. Buying this thinking your going to get rich and the insane pps will hold is a form of insanity.
I hate to rain on your parade here. If there was a way to decouple from plug there would be an instant pps drop. Plug lifted FCEL up to the ranges it hit. The chart says it all 200ma is 1.49 That is where it is heading according to the averages, however because of the hype here that is mostly just that, the 2.00 range is probably where it will settle. If anyone read the 10k they announced dilution. Dilution because they are still bleeding money. This company is not profitable and dilution will be inevitable until they can turn a profit. If you lose money on every product you make... Making more of that product only makes you lose more money faster. This actually belongs around the 1.00 ranges.
this has to be the single worst pos I ever tried to play. Company is garbage CEO is garbage I would rather put 50k into any.0001 stock than buy one share in this one
Great news for NOHO. A penny stock with actual profit! amazing
The news still hasnt hit my trading platform Etrade shows no news yet
looks like we have a solid bottom here Should pop back up
I dont think too many people are aware of this one. seems to be low profile
The fact is the automotive field is one of the most wide spread corrupt fields there is. Weather it is new sales or used. Service extended service Warranties or Owner dialog programs. There are 1001 ways to screw the customer/consumer/shareholders. I spent 25 years in the automotive field could tell you horror stories of what GM denied was their responsibility. The sad thing is Ford and Chrysler are just as bad.
something is brewing here. I have been picking up more shares.
better wait a few weeks. PPS is crashing and hasnt found a bottom yet.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
There's a strong possibility that General Motors won't face legal liability for most of the 13 deaths caused by an ignition defect in 1.4 million cars built between 2003 and 2007.
That's because, in 2009, GM (GM, Fortune 500) received a shield from such lawsuits as part of its bankruptcy filing and government rescue.
Claims from suits prior to the bankruptcy go to the Motors Liquidation Co., a shell corporation holding only closed GM plants and other debts.
GM was facing about 2,500 cases in 2009. In most cases, plaintiffs have received only pennies on the dollar.
Related: Congress to investigate GM recall
Chrysler Group got a similar liability shield when it was bailed out around the same time as GM.
GM announced the recall of vehicles with the ignition defect in February. There is evidence that engineers knew of the problem for nearly 10 years.
"It's completely unfair," said Lance Cooper, a Georgia attorney. Cooper recently won a settlement from GM for a family whose daughter was killed in a 2010 accident involving a 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt, one of the cars involved in the recall.
"It's not like a traditional bankruptcy where they go out of business," he added. "GM continued to exist as essentially the same company."
Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, said his group is asking GM to waive its liability shield.
"They took the government's money, but they didn't accept responsibility to the public who paid for it," said Cooper. "And it's the public that was hurt when their products injured or killed people."
Related: GM recall was delayed by internal miscues
Cooper says most of the 13 deaths cited by GM and safety investigators took place before the bankruptcy. The list of deaths has yet to be released publicly.
GM CEO Mary Barra, in a recent letter to GM employees, said "We will hold ourselves accountable" for the problems that led to the recall.
When asked about the liability shield, GM and Chrysler have made only limited statements.
"GM is focused on ensuring the safety and peace of mind of our customers involved in the recall," said GM spokesman Greg Martin. "It is true that new GM did not assume liability for claims arising from incidents or accidents occurring prior to July 2009. Our principle throughout this process has been to put the customer first, and that will continue to guide us."
He declined further comment when asked if GM might waive the liability shield in these cases.
Some attorneys have tried to sue the auto dealers that sold the cars involved in accidents, since they are independent businesses not covered by the bankruptcy. But Cooper said that can be a tougher case to make to juries.
Related: GM CEO Barra defends recall response
Some dealers, such as those that sold the now-discontinued Saturn line, have themselves gone out of business since 2009.
Chrysler and GM both initially proposed shedding liabilities on all vehicles sold before their bankruptcies, even if the accidents occurred after the bankruptcy. Under pressure from Congress, state attorneys generals and public interest groups, both accepted liability for accidents that occurred after the bankruptcy.
"Chrysler Group wants customers to feel comfortable and confident buying, driving and enjoying one of our vehicles," said Chrysler's statement on the the liability shield at that time. "Chrysler Group vehicles meet or exceed all applicable federal safety standards and have excellent safety records."
A Chrysler spokesman said Tuesday that the company had no further comment on the issue.
Opening itself up to liability could prove costly for GM. Ditlow said he's aware of several cases in which the automakers avoided judgments of tens of millions of dollars. He thinks total savings from the liability shield for both companies is between $2 billion to $3 billion.
Toyota Motor (TM) was hit with a $3 million jury award last year for a crash that was allegedly caused by unintended acceleration of a Camry. The victims in the case were both elderly women; younger victims with a lifetime of earnings ahead of them can receive far larger awards. Ongoing medical costs and pain and suffering for crash survivors can result in even larger judgments. To top of page
As Scandal Unfolds, G.M. Calls In the Lawyers
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and BARRY MEIERMARCH 15, 2014
Hiring outside counsel is part investigation, part public-relations gambit and part legal strategy. In most cases, the goal is to limit damage to an institution’s reputation or to contain the financial harm to shareholders of a publicly traded company. Credit Minh Uong/The New York Times
Late last summer, a lawyer named Lance Cooper sensed that his long battle with General Motors was coming to an end.
For three years, he tussled with lawyers from a high-powered firm hired to defend G.M. against his clients, the parents of Brooke Melton, a 29-year-old woman killed when her Chevy Cobalt lost power and collided with another vehicle. He sought internal documents and crucial witnesses, but at G.M.’s direction, lawyers from that firm, King & Spalding, fought him every step of the way, even refusing to disclose how many similar lawsuits the carmaker faced.
Then, in September, G.M. quietly settled Mr. Cooper’s case. The type of faulty ignition in Brooke Melton’s vehicle has become a major scandal for America’s biggest car company and has since been linked to other deaths and led to the recall of 1.6 million cars.
Continue reading the main story
Related Coverage
G.M. recalled several model years of the Cobalt and other cars, including Saturn Ions, from 2003 through 2007.
303 Deaths Seen in G.M. Cars With Failed Air BagsMARCH 13, 2014
Ms. Williams was a married homemaker with two sons, Gage, who is now 11, and Brody, 5.
Huge Recall by G.M. Sets Off Painful Questions on CrashesMARCH 12, 2014
The Chevrolet Cobalt is among 1.6 million vehicles recalled by General Motors because of a faulty ignition switch.
Lawyers Prepare for G.M. Suits With Novel StrategiesMARCH 12, 2014
And King & Spalding, the law firm that handled the Melton case for the company, has undergone a role reversal. This month, G.M. asked the firm, along with Jenner & Block, to conduct what the G.M. chief executive, Mary T. Barra, has called an “unvarnished” investigation into why the company failed for more than a decade to alert regulators and consumers to the defect.
Photo
Kelly Ruddy was killed in 2010 while driving this 2005 Chevy Cobalt, one of the models and years involved in a 1.6-million-car recall because of faulty ignition switches.
To Mr. Cooper, King & Spalding’s switch from a fierce defender of G.M. to a potential inquisitor into the company’s actions may also pose a conflict.
For one, some of the firm’s lawyers may have to ask their own colleagues if they advised G.M. about whether to recall the vehicles at the time the Melton case was settled.
“They are part of the story,” said Mr. Cooper, whose firm is based in Marietta, Ga.
There is a predictable trajectory to the modern institutional scandal: Charges of wrongdoing surface, then mount, and then the company announces that it will bring in an outside law firm to conduct an internal investigation. The announcement, made in sober, corporate language, sends a calming message: We’re not hiding. We’re taking this seriously. We’ve got this.
Hiring outside counsel in these cases is part investigation, part public-relations gambit and part legal strategy. In most cases, the goal isn’t to publicly flog a company or its top executives, but rather to limit damage to an institution’s reputation or to contain the financial harm to shareholders of a publicly traded company. And it does so under the protection of the attorney-client privilege. From the point of view of the company, a well-done internal investigation can shape the accepted story of what happened — and produce findings that allow the company to negotiate for lower penalties from prosecutors or regulators down the road.
To achieve those ends, the law firms conducting the investigations must be viewed as forthright and uncompromised. In this respect, some critics have already questioned G.M.’s choices.
The G.M. investigation will be led by Anton R. Valukas. Mr. Valukas gained credibility as the examiner in the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, when he revealed several accounting tricks that the investment bank had used to spiff up its balance sheet. He has also served in a number of special investigative roles for government agencies in Chicago. But he is also the chairman of Jenner & Block, which has done high-profile securities work for G.M. Both Jenner and King & Spalding have done product liability cases for the company.
Les Zuke, a spokesman for King & Spalding, declined to comment. Greg Martin, a G.M. spokesman, said that both King & Spalding and Jenner & Block had “reputations for adhering to the highest standards.” Mr. Valukas did not respond to a request for comment.
William R. McLucas, a partner at WilmerHale, a big name in corporate internal investigations, said that if companies want credibility with prosecutors and investors, it is generally not wise to use their regular law firms for internal inquiries. The Justice Department has already announced that it will investigate G.M.’s handling of the ignition defect.
“If you are a firm that is generating substantial fees from a prospective corporate client, you may be able to come in and do a bang-up inquiry,” said Mr. McLucas, who was the Securities and Exchange Commission’s director of enforcement for eight years. “But the perception is always going to be there; maybe you pulled your punches because there is a business relationship.”
Charles Elson, a professor of finance at the University of Delaware who specializes in corporate governance, agreed: “I would not have done it because of the optics. Public perception can be affected by using regular outside counsel.”
Internal investigations aren’t new, but as a practice of law, they really began to take off in the last decade. The housing bubble and crash pushed companies like Goldman Sachs to hire outside counsel to review their roles in the mortgage-backed securities market. New laws holding corporate directors more accountable for a company’s actions, as well as laws allowing whistle-blowers to collect big recoveries, have led to investigations of problems that companies might otherwise have ignored. The push by prosecutors to crack down on United States companies engaged in bribery and corruption abroad has also given businesses a big incentive to investigate themselves because of potential large fines.
“The government expects companies to do these,” said Jill E. Fisch, a corporate law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. “If you are going to cooperate with the government, this is part of the cooperation they expect. Internal investigations are pretty routine.”
Internal investigations are a boon for law firms. Mr. Valukas’s work in the Lehman case, which produced an exhaustive 2,200-page report, generated nearly $40 million in fees for the firm. Mr. Valukas charged $900 an hour; other lawyers at Jenner charge a blended rate of $400. These investigations, it’s fair to say, are now seen as the cost of doing business for any big publicly traded company and a reliable source of income for big law firms.
“Every law firm now says, ‘We are experts in internal investigations,’ ” said Mr. McLucas at WilmerHale, who most recently oversaw a JPMorgan Chase investigation into the London Whale trading scandal.
Public companies are not the only institutions that have turned to lawyers to conduct internal investigations. When a Miami Dolphins football player was accused of bullying a teammate, the National Football League hired Ted Wells, a noted white-collar defense lawyer, as well as lawyers from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to look into the incident. Penn State University reached out to a former F.B.I. director, Louis J. Freeh, to determine whether university officials had covered up for Jerry Sandusky, the former assistant football coach who was convicted in 2012 of sexually abusing young boys.
Mr. Freeh’s investigation was notable for its toughness. It concluded that Joe Paterno, the revered Penn State football coach, who died in 2012, had known of the accusations of abuse but said nothing. Few internal investigations result in disclosures that imperil top officials. But they can offer prosecutors a blueprint.
Photo
G.M. has hired two law firms to conduct what its chief executive, Mary T. Barra, called an “unvarnished” investigation into why the company failed for a decade to alert regulators and consumers to an ignition defect in some cars. Credit Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. McLucas helped with something of a road map to the London Whale debacle. His report faulted the bank for poor risk management in its London operation, but it did not lay any blame on Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase — a point some have criticized. Prosecutors eventually indicted two former JPMorgan traders in the scandal, which cost the bank $6.2 billion and resulted in penalties of more than $1 billion.
Prosecutors expect an internal investigation to be an honest assessment of a company’s misdeeds or faults, says Adam G. Safwat, a former deputy chief of the fraud section in the Justice Department, where he worked on a number of foreign bribery investigations.
“What you want to avoid is doing something that will make the prosecutor question the quality of integrity of the internal investigation,” said Mr. Safwat, who recently joined the Washington office of Weil Gotshal & Manges.
A shrewd law firm that gets out in front of scandal can use that to its advantage in negotiating with authorities to lower penalties and sanctions, said James McGrath, a principal at McGrath & Grace, a Cleveland firm that specializes in corporate investigations. “There is a great incentive to ferret out information so they can spin it.”
It is way too soon to say whether G.M.’s decision to retain two of its go-to law firms will cause government investigators to cast a skeptical eye on the internal investigative report that is ultimately produced.
Both firms have done extensive work for G.M. The carmaker has used Jenner for more than a decade, and its work includes advising G.M. on its post-bankruptcy initial public stock offering and negotiating a $5 billion line of credit for the company in 2012. The firm’s website says it has represented G.M. in “product liability cases involving vehicle incompatibility/aggressivity; crashworthiness; air bags; rollover/roof crush and seatbelts.”
King & Spalding, in addition to its recent involvement in the ignition-switch litigation in Georgia, has represented G.M. in other product liability lawsuits arising from accusations of manufacturing flaws with the company’s vehicles. The law firm’s website lists G.M. as one of its “representative clients.”
In another sign of King & Spalding’s close ties to G.M., Harold E. Franklin Jr., the partner who represented G.M. in the Melton litigation, served as an “in-house counsel” of sorts to the auto company’s product litigation group. Mr. Franklin’s profile on the King & Spalding website describes his job as having been “on loan from King & Spalding.”
Some suggest that there is logic behind G.M.’s decision to retain law firms it has worked with for many years. Ellen S. Podgor, a professor of criminal law at the Stetson University College of Law, said that from a corporation’s perspective, there is an advantage to hiring lawyers who are familiar with a company. They understand how the company is structured and can get up to speed quickly.
Other lawyers said a respected lawyer like Mr. Valukas was unlikely to soft-pedal his review of the recall issue at G.M. He, too, has a reputation to uphold. And companies won’t hire him if he is seen as just going through the motions.
Mr. Martin, the G.M. spokesman, made a similar point in an emailed statement: “Mr. Valukas has been charged to go where the facts take him and give the company an unvarnished report on what happened.”
G.M. retained the outside lawyers just days after it received a detailed order from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The order directed G.M. to answer 107 specific questions related to the defect and the company’s handling of it.
That G.M. has known about the problem for more than a decade may force the review to address a fundamental question if it is to be credible: Did the company’s handling of the ignition-switch defect reflect its underlying culture as opposed to being an isolated problem? It is a question that companies rarely look to outside lawyers to answer.
In fact, one company that found itself facing a product-safety firestorm, the Guidant Corporation, took a different approach. Its heart defibrillators had a potentially fatal defect that it did not reveal to patients or doctors. When that came to light, Guidant, rather than relying on outside lawyers, took the unusual step of setting up a panel of independent heart specialists, engineers and corporate governance experts to conduct its own investigation of the episode and whether the company’s culture had played a role in causing it.
That panel’s report, issued in 2006, was critical of Guidant. It found that engineers, rather than safety experts, drove the company’s decision-making about product safety issues.
For the most part, corporate governance experts said that internal investigations done today, even by firms that have worked previously with a company, are far better than the ones performed more than a decade ago. Big law firms have become skilled at walling off lawyers in one practice group from another to avoid conflicts.
Vinson & Elkins’s investigation into questionable accounting at Enron is viewed as an utter failure or a corporate whitewash. The review essentially gave Enron a clean bill of health just months before it collapsed in one of the biggest accounting frauds of all time. In 2006, the law firm paid $30 million to Enron’s bankruptcy estate to resolve claims that its actions had contributed to the energy company’s demise.
The best internal investigations, said Ms. Podgor and other lawyers, are the ones that don’t receive much media attention. A company deals with a problem quickly, and if there’s something to report to authorities, the company tends to be treated leniently for its forthrightness.
It’s the kind of work that may not give the lawyers involved any public adulation. But, ultimately, they are well compensated all the same.
Lawsuit kicks off class action claims against GM
Reuters
10 hours ago
By Jessica Dye
Related Stories
Lawsuit says GM concealed ignition defect in recalled cars Reuters
U.S. safety regulators probe GM recall linked to 13 deaths Reuters
Feds Ignored Complaints about GM Defect That Led to 13 Deaths: Report 24/7 Wall St.
U.S. safety watchdog says 303 deaths linked to recalled GM cars Reuters
US safety agency to probe GM recall response Associated Press
NEW YORK, March 14 (Reuters) - General Motors was hit on Friday with what appeared to be the first lawsuit related to the recall of 1.6 million cars, as customers claimed their vehicles lost value because of ignition problems blamed for a series of fatal crashes.
The proposed class action, filed in federal court in Texas, said GM knew about the problem since 2004, but failed to fix it, creating "unreasonably dangerous" conditions for drivers of the affected models.
"GM's mishandling of the ignition switch defect....has adversely affected the company's reputation as a manufacturer of safe, reliable vehicles with high resale value," the lawsuit said.
The recall has led to government criminal and civil investigations, an internal probe by GM, and preparations for hearings by Congress. All ask why GM took so long to address a problem it has said first came to its attention in 2001.
A GM spokesman, Greg Martin, said the company has apologized for how it handled the recall and that taking care of customers was its first priority. He did not comment on the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages from GM that include compensation for loss of the use of their vehicles and repairs and diminished resale value. They are not claiming they were injured in accidents stemming from ignition problems.
The lawsuit is reminiscent of claims faced by Toyota Motor Corp, which recalled more than 10 million vehicles starting in 2009. Toyota last year received approval for a settlement valued at $1.6 billion to resolve economic loss claims and is currently negotiating the settlement of hundreds of personal-injury lawsuits.
GM announced the recall in February, despite learning of problems with the ignition switch in 2001 and issuing related service bulletins to dealers with suggested remedies in 2005.
GM said that when the ignition switch was jostled, a key could turn off the car's engine and disable airbags, sometimes while traveling at high speed. GM has said it received reports of 12 deaths and 34 crashes in the recalled cars.
The Center for Auto Safety, a watchdog group, on Thursday said that data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed 303 deaths occurred when airbags failed to deploy in two of the models GM recalled. GM called the report "pure speculation" and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the National Center for Trauma and EMS at the University of Maryland said the figure did not take into account whether airbags would be expected to deploy in some crashes.
The plaintiffs in Friday's lawsuit, Daryl and Maria Brandt, said they own a 2007 Chevy Cobalt, which was one of several models recalled by GM. They said that they have driven their car less than they otherwise would because they feared being in an accident stemming from the ignition issues, according to the complaint.
Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law who specializes in products liability, said he did not expect GM would have to pay as much as Toyota did if it seeks to resolve the economic loss claims.
The GM recall applied to older models and was significantly smaller than the Toyota recall, although that could change as the investigations against GM continue, he said.
GM also has offered owners of recalled vehicles $500 toward the purchase of a new GM vehicle, a factor that could mitigate any liability, he said.
The best explanation for the fall is the rise and the chart I posted with all the annotations on it. This may be a good stock in 2 years but right now its purely trading on hype.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=FCEL&p=D&yr=0&mn=3&dy=0&id=p82979781187&a=340956012
puts are working well here watching them go up every day
will watch this at around the high 30 dollar range..that is the next support
Normally I regret posts such as this. BUT I think we could see a 1.00 in the near future. Extreemly low float here and an actual company with assets from what I read last night. Im buying today for the rise to what I think could be a buck a share.
If anyone looked at the chart I posted this was to be expected.. Lower everyday. 10K stating dilution.
Pot news coming on CNBC any moment
Pot news coming on CNBC in a few minutes
good news today
basic options are not hard to learn.. The part that is hard to do is make money with them. Knowing when to buy and sell. Just like stocks. Plus your account has to be approved for options trading
Im not saying its going to zero. Im saying its way way over priced here. Time will tell if I am correct. I feel this will drop back in the 2 dollar ranges fairly soon
ok here is my proof. take a look at the annotated chart and see for yourself
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=FCEL&p=D&yr=0&mn=3&dy=0&id=p82979781187&a=340956012
excellent strategy. I thought about it today but decided PLUG looked very top heavy here. Bought a large amount of 7 dollar puts. I think we saw a dead cat bounce as was posted by someone else. Never saw a stock go up on losing money. They usually drop fairly well
there is no reason to be rude. I only post truth of what I see
Warren called ...I told him to sell PLUG
You didnt include in RED the most important part.
EBITDA which is a measure of cash flow and is based on earnings before interest, tax and depreciation and amortization totaled negative 6.3 million, an improvement from the negative 9.9 million for the comparable prior year period as a result of lower cost from increased production volume and sales mix.
LOSING MONEY!!
You see a strike price on each stock for each month, the strike price is the amount you think the stock will trade at. for example FCEL is trading around 3.40 right now.. 4 dollar puts are in the money and 3 dollar calls are in the money. If you dont know what your doing its best to stay away until you learn
Dont we know the earnings are going to be bad tomorrow for this? One look at the options chains tells the tale here.. Everyone is buying puts for the massive drop
other way is buy puts... it is for sure heading down to the 2 buck or lower ranges
7 bucks a share??? way way way overbought at these levels IMO
anyone else notice the 25 million share buy right at the close at .0078
The Golden cross is almost here on this one. Right now we have the 20ma line crossing the 200. The 50ma is heading up right behind the 20 should cross in the next couple of days
Someone was buying a lot of this last night after hours.
how do you come up with the companys value of 2.64 a share? I would like to see your math
Do you have an idea why this one went nutz today?
accumulating here
my old computer used to put the message boards right under the news areas all on one page. This new one I have to type in the stock and then click on the message board for that particular stock
wow talk about a stock to buy and hold !! Im in