As one who bought in at a lousy time for .0013, I am growing more concerned...
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By: eliot
06 Feb 2006, 11:05 AM EST
Msg. 9718 of 9718
(This msg. is a reply to 9717 by talkingmuley.)
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A FOIA Request "Day In The Life Of OSTK" From The SEC
Location: BlogsBob O'Brien's Sanity Check Blog
Posted by: bobo 2/4/2006 5:37 PM
Alan Newman got his wish today.
Or at least one of his wishes. He asked the SEC for a count of the FTDs in OSTK for August 1, 2005, and was turned down...well, just because. He appealed it, and ultimately received the data.
Here is the letter that indicated that his request had been granted by the SEC, and here is the FOIA.
The FOIA data reflects a one day snapshot, which aggregates all clearing firm positions, for settlement date 8/1.
On 8/1, roughly 614K shares traded. Of those, 550K failed to deliver.
So 90% of the trades for that day, failed. This is entirely consistent with Byrne being unable to get 50K shares purchased around then for two months, as well as his dad being unable to get almost 200K bought randomly in the open market during that period, and further is consistent with Byrne's broker indicating that likely none of the shares trading in OSTK could be delivered if a buy-in was executed, as none of the volume was genuine shares being sold. That is all documented.
This is shocking, and frankly, confirms my worst fears. It also should serve as a wake up call to investors, as well as to the apologists for naked short selling, who insist that there is no problem.
I would say that when 90% of the trading on any given day is fraud, where investor money is taken, and then no product is delivered, that is a big problem - one might say a catastrophic problem.
Now, before anyone gets all fired up and says that this is the total outstanding CUMULATIVE fails for OSTK, I would suggest that you read the SEC letter closely - the reason it was granted was because it represented a one day snapshot, aggregated from all clearing firm positions, for that date. I would suggest that anyone who feels that is incorrect should call the SEC counsel and ask, very clearly, whether that is the cumulative total of all FTDs for OSTK as of 8/1, inclusive of all aged fails, or just the fails for 8/1. My hunch is that I know the answer.
If I'm right, this is the smoking gun. And folks, it confirms that OSTK is being abused by the system at a level which is indescribable as anything but out-and-out fraud.
I wonder what the FTD information for NFI looks like for April 12-26 2004? Or for the first 2 months of 2005? Want to bet that 90% of the trading in that issue as well was bogus, designed to act as a bear raid on the stock to force investors to sell, due to margin calls, or panic?
This is it, my friends. The SEC and the DTCC are allowing fraud at a scale so massive that it defies description - this is why they won't tell anyone how many TOTAL CUMULATIVE FTDs there are - investors would recoil in shock. The system is out of control, and our money is being stolen wholesale.
