Wamu WKN 893906 News !
um sich......."Ich tippe mal auf 2€ bis spätestens Ende des Jahres..."
erwähnenswert ist seine Begründung dafür....grins
"Wie ich schon schrieb, ist das Ganze ein Zock auf eine (möglicherweise) erfolgreiche Geschäftsgründung......"
die passende Antwort zu diesen Nonsens kam postwendend von Pfandbrief.....
"Ja. Mit "Geschäftsgründung" meinst Du die geplante Akquisition. Oder was sonst? Zuletzt wurde auf der Hauptversammlung deutlich gesagt dass die einzige Möglichkeit hier weiterzumachen darin besteht ein funktionierendes Unternehmen zu übernehmen. Wir haben hier 75 Millionen Eigenkapital. Was GENAU muss passieren, damit wir das "bis spätestens Ende des Jahres" versiebenfachen? Oder anders gesagt: wie blöd muss der Verkäufer sein?..."
grins
Die US-Großbank JP Morgan Chase blickt auf ein erfolgreiches Quartal zurück. Besonders erfreulich lief es erneut im wichtigen Investmentbanking. Auch Konkurrent Wells Fargo überrascht positiv. Die Ergebnisse lassen darauf hoffen, dass sich die Branche weiter erholt.
JP Morgan hat die Berichtssaison der US-Banken mit einem soliden Gewinnsprung eröffnet: Der Überschuss legte im zweiten Quartal auf 6,5 Milliarden Dollar zu, im Vergleich zum Vorjahr ist das ein Plus von fast einem Drittel. Das Unternehmen schnitt vor allem im Investmentbanking besser ab als erwartet. Doch JP Morgan profitierte auch davon, dass etwa im Immobiliengeschäft einen Teil der Risikovorsorge für faule Kredite aufgelöst werden konnte.
Das Institut setzte damit zum Auftakt der Berichtssaison der Großbanken wie schon zum Jahresstart ein positives Zeichen. Ganz überraschend kommen die guten Zahlen im zweiten Quartal nicht: Konzernchef Jamie Dimon hatte die Aktionäre schon im Juni auf eine erfreuliche Entwicklung eingestimmt und gute Geschäfte im Handelsbereich in Aussicht gestellt. Nun sagte Dimon, dass sich die US-Wirtschaft weiter verbessern dürfte.
Im Investmentbanking fuhr JP Morgan einen Nettogewinn von 2,8 Mrd. Dollar ein - 19 Prozent mehr als vor einem Jahr. Damals hatte ein Londoner Händler mit dem Spitznamen "der Wal" mit hochriskanten Wetten Milliarden in den Sand gesetzt, die sich tief in die Quartalsbilanz fraßen. Solche Sonderbelastungen gab es dieses Mal nicht. Insbesondere im Handel liefen die Geschäfte besser, als viele Branchenexperten angesichts des Auf und Ab an den Märkten zuletzt erwartet hatten.
Das Tagesgeschäft zog allerdings nicht ganz so kräftig an wie erhofft. Dimon verwies darauf, dass die Kreditnachfrage insgesamt verhalten bleibe. "Wir sehen aber viele Anzeichen dafür, dass sich die US-Wirtschaft weiter erholt." Das dürfte im Jahresverlauf auch dem Kreditgeschäft der Banken helfen, meinte er.
bevor ihr so einen Schrott von (W)..... lesen müsst hier was interessantes
Quelle: aus dem Fannie Mae Forum Poster:Crawford2012
It is a very good read and worth a cup of coffe on this beautiful Saturday Morning! Enjoy!
See two section I highlighted in Red - Very Important for longs!
I have always wondered if the big stock traders were able to manipulate the stock market and how they did it. Now I am confident that I know the answer to both of these questions, and you will too, after you read this article, and view the information in the links provided. I describe and illustrate the process they use to manipulate stocks in easy to understand terms. First, so you don't think I am totally out of my mind making these allegations, here is a link for you to view a YouTube video of CNBC's Jim Cramer titled, "Market Manipulation is a fact" and a link to Jim Cramer's Wikepedia where you can find the following excerpt-
"In March 2007, a December 2006 interview from TheStreet.com's "Wall Street Confidential" webcast stirred controversy after it appeared on YouTube.com. In the video, Cramer described activities used by hedge fund managers to manipulate stock prices - some of debatable legality and others illegal. He described how he could push stocks higher or lower with as little as $5 million in capital when he was running his hedge fund. Cramer said, "A lot of times when I was short at my hedge fund...When I was positioned short-meaning I needed it down-I would create a level of activity beforehand that could drive the futures." He also encouraged hedge funds to engage in this type of activity because it is "a very quick way to make money"."
"Cramer stated that everything he did was legal, but that illegal activity is common in the hedge fund industry as well. He also stated that some hedge fund managers spread false rumors to drive a stock down: "What's important when you are in that hedge-fund mode is to not do anything remotely truthful because the truth is so against your view, that it's important to create a new truth, to develop a fiction." Cramer described a variety of tactics that hedge fund managers use to affect a stock's price. Cramer said that one strategy to keep a stock price down is to spread false rumors to reporters he described as "the Pisanis of the world". The comment was a reference to CNBC correspondent Bob Pisani, who reports from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange. "You have to use these guys," said Cramer. He also discussed giving information to "the bozo reporter from The Wall Street Journal" to get an article published. Cramer said this practice, although illegal, is easy to do "because the SEC doesn't understand it." During the interview Cramer referred to himself as a "banking class hero.""
Even though I have traded in the stock market for many years, it wasn't until I recently starting trading stocks using TD Ameritrade's ThinkorSwim trading platform, where I can quickly analyze stock trading over various time periods (day(s), month(s), year(s)) as well as over short intervals (even as short as a minute), that I began to realize how shorts were manipulating the market. Since May 1st of this year when a short attack began against Herbalife (HLF), I have been following all of the activity surrounding that company including all news stories as well as all daily trading activity.
Before I began researching the information for this article, I began to see (HLF) trading activity that didn't make sense to me. In fact, it really didn't make sense that two companies under different ownership and management but mainly just sharing the commonality of being MLM's, Herbalife's and Nu Skin's (NUS) shares were both attacked at the same time. Here is a link to both company's charts- HLF chart and NUS Chart , where you can see how their share price has traded over the last few months. (SUGGESTION: Use 6 month time period as well as candlestick format for the charts)
Even though I believe there has been manipulation of Herbalife's (HLF) shares on a daily basis, I want to focus on the manipulation that occurred immediately after Herbalife reported Record 2nd Quarter 2012 which I discuss in greater detail in my article- "Herbalife Shorts Shorted More Shares To Stop Upward Share Price Momentum" In order to stop longs enthusiasm and the momentum created by a great 2nd quarter, shorts continued to added 585,409 shares of HLF shorted to their short positions over the period August 1, 2012 to August 15, 2012 to not only stop Herbalife's share price from rising but to also knock it back down by $1.85-
Settlement Date Short Interest Closing Share price
8/15/2012 13,007,577 $53.05
7/31/2012 12,422,168 $54.89
You might think an additional 585,409 shares shorted sounds like a small number of shares shorted since Herbalife has over 100 million shares outstanding. However, when you realize that there was only actually 11 trading days during that time period, and when you also understand that the shorts used computerized selling and buying of shares at opportune times to manipulate the share price, you should understand why they were able to control Herbalife's share price during that time period, to stop the upward share price momentum, and then to drive the share price slightly down.
How it works
This process can be used by hedge funds to either pump up a stock or to trash a stock but since I am using Herbalife as an example, we will discuss that situation. First information is widely distributed to make investors wonder about the company and to put fear into those longs that hold the stock. Next, high volume shorting takes place to drive the company's share price down.
As the short attack continues, more people parade out news to continue to put questions in the back of investors' minds. On a daily basis, shorts use computerized trading to control the direction of the share price. At opportune times, the shorts overwhelm the buyers (bid price) of the stock by selling short large number of shares to drive the share price down and to eliminate the buyers for the stock at that given time. For people who are not familiar with the bid/ask process of trading stocks, here is a link to explain that process.
Shorts need to control the stock's share price over a long time (often several months to well over a year), and can't afford to just accumulate an unlimited number of short positions in the stock, so they have to be buying shares at the same time they are selling shares too. When the shorts drive the share price down, eliminating buyers as discussed above, some of those investors trying to sell their shares at that same time will follow the share price activity downward lowering their ask price.
Now the shorts can buy back some of the shares they have shorted at lower prices including some shares where longs have put stop-loss sale orders to protect against downside losses. The shorts will only buy shares part of the way back up as the share price rises, and then wait to see if new buyers come into the market. If the share price continues to rise up to much again during the day, the shorts will repeat the same selling and buying process to control the share price.
As mentioned above, the shorts need to control the share price over an extended period of time. They need to wear down the longs with rumor mongering as well as by creating fear as the longs continue to see the share price go down from the computerized trading. They hope the longs will give up and sell their shares at the lowest possible share price.
Another observation, shorts try to wear down the longs by making sure that the share price closes down as many days in a row as they can put together. At the close of each day, I witnessed volume dramatically increasing as the shorts tried to insure Herbalife's share price closed down. Shorts are hoping the longs frustration with the share price continuing downward will end up in capitulation where as many longs as possible just give up and sell their shares.
I don't know how low the shorts will drive the share price of Herbalife during this current short attack, but I do believe Herbalife is a strong good growing company. As with all false short attacks, the share price will bounce back. After the share price bottom is reached, I expect the shorts to continue their rumor mongering so they can continue buying to cover their shorts as the share price rises back up.
Since Herbalife is already in its 5th month of being attacked by shorts, and if history repeats itself, anyone buying shares of Herbalife (HLF) at this time should be in for some nice gains over the next 6 to 12 months as Herbalife's share price rises back to and above where it was when this short attack began. The shorts greatest fear is that people will figure out their lies to soon, and the share price will rise up to quickly. I think there is a good chance for that to happen as a lot of people will be learning more about this scheme.
Also I have to believe this manipulation has to involve collusion between all the major players in the Herbalife short attack since it wouldn't work like it has if they didn't work together. If one or more of the major short players decided they didn't want to participate further in driving the share price down, and decided to buy to cover, this would create a major problem for those other major short players. The remaining major short players would not only have to drive the price down based on selling shares to new longs but would also have to sell shares to those other major short players buying to cover their shorts. The remaining short players would not be able to manipulate the stock share price as easy as they did working together.
If you are wondering why would they short more shares even when a company like Herbalife is obviously a healthy growing company. Here is the reason. Since the shorts already have the investment community wondering about problems, introduced by the shorts themselves, concerning the company; since shorts have already shorted $745 Million+ (12,422,168 X $60 per share (my guess at average share price shorts sold their shares at)) shares of Herbalife; and by just adding almost $32 Million (585,409 X $54 average-?) more shares shorted, the shorts were able to take the steam out of a lot of the longs' enthusiasm over the 2nd quarter financial news, and now the shorts believe they will have a better opportunity to buy to cover their shorts at a lower price as well as they will have more time to do so. At least that's what the shorts hope for.
Also from the shorts view, they have offset that additional $32 Million of shorting by reducing the basis of the 12,422,168 shares they already had on their books by an almost $23 Million (12,422,168 X $1.84 share reduction) of increased unrealized gain. On top of trying to obtain direct profits from controlling the share price, and since shorts know more about the direction of the share price, shorts are able to make more profits from selling and buying options. I would have to believe these option profits could run into the millions of dollars too.
As you can see from the large dollar amounts involved in Herbalife's short attack, these must be big players and they must have a lot of influence over the marketplace which brings me to my next subject.
I am really concerned about the investment reporting we are getting from the media especially from CNBC's reporters Jim Cramer and Herb Greenberg. Jim Cramer, who apparently couldn't recommend Herbalife's stock during the last short attack in 2008-2009 which included the same short arguments currently being used, "Herbalife Short Attack: History Repeats Itself."; changed to repeatedly recommending to buy the stock as the stock climbed up to the $70+ range, and then abandoned longs once again by changing to not recommending Herbalife's stock as he tells everyone per this 8/8/12 video "Lightning Round" (see video at 2:50).
It appears Cramer just abandoned those Herbalife longs again including those that purchased their shares based on his recommendation to join his hedge fund buddies that are short Herbalife. Cramer claimed that he couldn't recommend Herbalife based upon a decision made over 4 years ago by Herbalife to not fight a legal battle with Barry Minkow, a convicted felon which his fellow CNBC reporter Greenberg brought to his attention and discusses in his article, "Why Did Herbalife Pay Felon Barry Minkow $300,000?: Greenberg". I have fully explained, in the following linked article, why Herbalife made the decisions they made surrounding this issue and have emailed this information to both Cramer and Greenberg with no change or response by either of them- ""Response To Greenberg: Reasons Why Herbalife Paid Felon Barry Minkow $300,000"
As far as to Greenberg's reporting, I don't know what his connections are to the big hedge funds shorting Herbalife, but I think he seems desperate to come up with "what if this happens" issues to the point that even Per this CNBC 7/31/12 interview of Michael Johnson, Herbalife CEO by Cramer and Greenberg (at 10:18 of video), Johnson seemed puzzled when Greenberg frantically blurted out his last question as if he was trying to search for one last dagger to put in Michael Johnson's back-
Greenberg's question: "You are very big in Mexico- Wal-Mart had problems in Mexico- How do we know you are not paying bribes in Mexico?"
Johnson's response to Greenberg: <laughing> "You are coming from a very interesting place. We got to get you wired for positive."
Other CNBC commentators: <laughing in background> "How was that a follow up for the Avon question?"
How to tell a correctly shorted stock versus a short attack bluff
Since David Einhorn's innocuous questions on Herbalife's conference call seems to be the event that started the short attack on Herbalife, and since Einhorn loves poker, I will use poker terms to explain how you can determine whether a stock is shorted for good reasons or just a bluff.
If you believe you have a winning hand in poker, you want everyone else to put in as much cash as they possible can. You don't want to tip them off in any fashion that you have the winning hand. You want the pot to as big as possible when you show your hand. If you don't have a good hand and are bluffing, you need to be sneaky putting in bets when you really know you don't have a good hand hoping that the other players fold their winning hands. You don't even want others to put more cash in the pot since you want them to drop out of the game.
First you need to understand that the object for shorts is selling as high as they can and then buying as low as they can if they have to cover their short position. For those of you who are not familiar with selling stock short, here is a link to explain short selling. Also when longs are selling their positions, they will always try to sell their shares at the highest price they can get.
If you knew a company's share price was really overpriced for any reason, you would not do anything to tip anyone else off until you had shorted all the shares you could. Then, given the right opportunity to show your hand, you would explain your position as to why the shares were over priced in a logical fashion. Yes, there would be other shorts jump in to help drive the share price down but it wouldn't necessarily be about driving the share price down based mainly upon high volume trading. You would be ok with longs coming into the market to drive the share price up (more cash in the pot) since it would give you more of an opportunity to short at a higher price before your real prediction came true.
If you were a short bluffing (basically manipulating a shares' price) about a company's overvalued share price, you might not want to draw attention to yourself since you could get accused of stock manipulation so you would hope (or plan for) others to get involved and to present seemingly good reasons to short the stock. You would want to put as much fear into longs as possible and would use high volume short trading as well as buying to drive the share price down as low as you can and as long as you can. You really want the longs to fold and to get out of the game. If you are consistently seeing sellers overwhelming buyers driving a share price down as a stock seems to be going up, I can assure you it's probably shorts selling since longs are totally motivated to sell their shares at the highest possible selling price.
Here is what one stock investment reporter from one of America's premier financial magazines, who had wrote some articles about Herbalife's situation which I disagreed with, emailed me (I will not give his name out as I don't want to cause him problems.)-
"I'm no lawyer but doesn't it reek of stock manipulation? I would think so. A lot of hedge-fund types I come across are skittish about appearing in the media whatsoever, much less being portrayed (correctly) as tanking a stock.
It could be as simple as a (well-advised) desire to not invite more regulatory scrutiny."
I believe that stock market manipulation by big players is a major problem. I know this article focuses on one stock, but just like cockroaches, if you can find one, I am sure there are a lot more out there. The only way we are going to make changes in this society is to make as many people, especially our elected officials, aware of this problem as we can. I am sure this problem steals money from the vast majority of our investments and retirement programs. If you agree with me, and you want to help me try to do something about this problem, by getting the word out, please email this article, post to facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, etc. links to this article, of my blog, to as many people as you can.
As for me, I am long HLF shares and I still believe that Herbalife shares are a great buy as per my article, "Herbalife Shorts' Problems Could Be Great Buying Opportunity For Longs".
HOW PAULSON GAVE HEDGE FUNDS ADVANCE WORD OF FANNIE MAE RESCUE
By Richard Teitelbaum - Nov 29, 2011 11:46 AM CT
Bloomberg Markets Magazine
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stepped off the elevator into the Third Avenue offices of hedge fund Eton Park Capital Management LP in Manhattan. It was July 21, 2008, and market fears were mounting. Four months earlier, Bear Stearns Cos. had sold itself for just $10 a share to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)
Now, amid tumbling home prices and near-record foreclosures, attention was focused on a new source of contagion: Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac, which together had more than $5 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and other debt outstanding, Bloomberg Markets reports in its January issue.
Paulson had been pushing a plan in Congress to open lines of credit to the two struggling firms and to grant authority for the Treasury Department to buy equity in them. Yet he had told reporters on July 13 that the firms must remain shareholder owned and had testified at a Senate hearing two days later that giving the government new power to intervene made actual intervention improbable.
“If you have a bazooka, and people know you have it, you’re not likely to take it out,” he said.
On the morning of July 21, before the Eton Park meeting, Paulson had spoken to New York Times reporters and editors, according to his Treasury Department schedule. A Times article the next day said the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were inspecting Fannie and Freddie’s books and cited Paulson as saying he expected their examination would give a signal of confidence to the markets.
A Different Message
At the Eton Park meeting, he sent a different message, according to a fund manager who attended. Over sandwiches and pasta salad, he delivered that information to a group of men capable of profiting from any disclosure.
Around the conference room table were a dozen or so hedge- fund managers and other Wall Street executives -- at least five of them alumni of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), of which Paulson was chief executive officer and chairman from 1999 to 2006. In addition to Eton Park founder Eric Mindich, they included such boldface names as Lone Pine Capital LLC founder Stephen Mandel, Dinakar Singh of TPG-Axon Capital Management LP and Daniel Och of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC.
After a perfunctory discussion of the market turmoil, the fund manager says, the discussion turned to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Paulson said he had erred by not punishing Bear Stearns shareholders more severely. The secretary, then 62, went on to describe a possible scenario for placing Fannie and Freddie into “conservatorship” -- a government seizure designed to allow the firms to continue operations despite heavy losses in the mortgage markets.
Stock Wipeout
Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out. So too would the various classes of preferred stock, he said.
The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information -- to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan. The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information.
There’s no evidence that they did so after the meeting; tracking firm-specific short stock sales isn’t possible using public documents.
And law professors say that Paulson himself broke no law by disclosing what amounted to inside information.
Rampant Rumors
At the time, rumors about Fannie and Freddie were tearing through the markets. The government-chartered firms’ mandate, which continues today, is to buy mortgages from banks and repackage them into securities either for their own portfolios or to sell to others. The banks can then use the proceeds from those transactions to write new mortgages.
By mid-2008, delinquencies and foreclosures were soaring, and the GSEs set aside billions of dollars against future losses. In the first six months of 2008, they racked up net losses of $5.46 billion as they slashed dividends and marked down the values of their huge inventories of mortgage-backed securities.
On Wall Street, confusion reigned. UBS AG analyst Eric Wasserstrom on July 10 cut his share price target on Freddie to $10 from $28. The next day, Citigroup Inc. (C) analyst Bradley Ball reiterated a “buy” recommendation on the two GSEs. On July 12, the Times of London, without citing a source, reported that Paulson was contemplating a $15 billion capital injection into the firms.
Shares Rally
At the time Paulson privately addressed the fund managers at Eton Park, he had given the market some positive signals -- and the GSEs’ shares were rallying, with Fannie Mae’s nearly doubling in four days.
William Black, associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, can’t understand why Paulson felt impelled to share the Treasury Department’s plan with the fund managers.
“You just never ever do that as a government regulator -- transmit nonpublic market information to market participants,” says Black, who’s a former general counsel at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco. “There were no legitimate reasons for those disclosures.”
Janet Tavakoli, founder of Chicago-based financial consulting firm Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc., says the meeting fits a pattern.
“What is this but crony capitalism?” she asks. “Most people have had their fill of it.”
A Lawyer’s Advice
The fund manager who described the meeting left after coffee and called his lawyer. The attorney’s quick conclusion: Paulson’s talk was material nonpublic information, and his client should immediately stop trading the shares of Washington- based Fannie and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie.
Seven weeks later, the boards of the two firms voted to go into conservatorship under the newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency. The takeover was effective Sept. 6, a Saturday, and the companies’ stock prices dropped below $1 the following Monday, from $14.13 for Fannie Mae and $8.75 for Freddie Mac (FMCC) on the day of the meeting. Various classes of preferred shares lost upwards of 85 percent of their value.
A complete list of those at the Eton Park meeting isn’t publicly available. A Treasury Department roster of those expected to attend, obtained by Bloomberg News under the Freedom of Information Act, includes Ripplewood Holdings LLC CEO Timothy Collins, who says, through a spokesman, that he didn’t participate.
Storied Investors
At least one fund manager who wasn’t listed in the FOIA document, Daniel Stern of Reservoir Capital Group, did attend, says the manager who described the meeting.
The gathering comprised some of Wall Street’s most storied investors. Mindich, a former chief strategy officer of New York- based Goldman Sachs, started Eton Park in 2004 with $3.5 billion, at the time one of the biggest hedge-fund launches ever. Singh, a former head of Goldman’s proprietary-trading desk, also began his fund in 2004, in partnership with private- equity firm Texas Pacific Group Ltd.
Lone Pine’s Mandel worked as a retail analyst at Goldman before joining Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management LLC, one of the most successful hedge funds of the 1980s and 1990s. He started his own firm in 1997. Och was co-head of U.S. equity trading at Goldman before founding Och-Ziff in 1994. The publicly listed firm managed $28.9 billion in November.
Goldman Alums
One other Goldman Sachs alumnus was at the meeting: Frank Brosens, founder and principal of Taconic Capital Advisors LP, who worked at Goldman as an arbitrageur and who was a protege of Robert Rubin, who went on to become Treasury secretary.
Non-Goldman Sachs alumni who attended included short seller James Chanos of Kynikos Associates Ltd., who helped uncover the Enron Corp. accounting fraud; GSO Capital Partners LP co-founder Bennett Goodman, who sold his firm to Blackstone Group LP (BX) in early 2008; Roger Altman, chairman and founder of New York investment bank Evercore Partners Inc. (EVR); and Steven Rattner, a co-founder of private-equity firm Quadrangle Group LLC, who went on to serve as head of the U.S. government’s Automotive Task Force.
Another person in attendance: Michele Davis, then-assistant secretary for public affairs at the Treasury Department, who now represents Paulson as a managing partner at public relations firm Brunswick Group Inc. In an e-mail response to Bloomberg Markets, she referred all questions to Paulson’s book on the financial crisis, “On the Brink” (Business Plus, 2010), which makes no mention of the Eton Park meeting.
Paulson Thinktank
Paulson is now a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago, where he’s starting the Paulson Institute, a think tank focused on U.S.-Chinese relations.
Eton Park’s Mindich, Lone Pine’s Mandel, TPG-Axon’s Singh and Och-Ziff (OZM)’s Och all declined to comment through spokesmen. Reservoir’s Stern didn’t return phone calls. Altman, through a spokesman, confirmed his attendance and declined to comment further.
Brosens confirmed in an e-mail that he had attended and said he couldn’t recall details. A spokesman for Rattner acknowledged he attended and said he didn’t trade in Fannie Mae- or Freddie Mac-related instruments after the meeting. Chanos declined to comment.
A Blackstone spokesman confirmed in an e-mail that GSO’s Goodman attended the meeting. Blackstone doesn’t believe market- sensitive information was discussed, and in any event Blackstone didn’t take any positions in Fannie or Freddie between the luncheon and Sept. 6, he wrote.
Strong Short Interest
Records show that many investors were betting against Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at the time. According to Data Explorers Ltd., a London-based research firm, short interest in Fannie Mae shares rose sharply in July, to 163 million shares on July 14 from 86.3 million shares on July 9.
Short Interest continued to rise, to 240 million shares, on the day of the Eton Park meeting; it hit 262 million on July 24, its high for the year. Freddie Mac’s short interest showed a similar trajectory.
Revelations about the meeting come at a sensitive time.
“The optics are awful; there’s no doubt about it,” says professor Larry Ribstein of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign. “Everyone knows that insider trading is a huge issue.”
Rajat Gupta, the former head of McKinsey & Co. who was a member of Goldman’s board, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Oct. 26 for disclosing nonpublic information on Goldman and other companies to Raj Rajaratnam, a hedge-fund manager who earlier in October was sentenced to 11 years in prison for profiting from inside information provided by a web of industry insiders, including Gupta.
Gupta has pleaded not guilty.
LightSquared Probe
Several U.S. agencies face increased scrutiny in Congress for possible improper disclosures or ties to hedge funds. Senators are looking into whether the U.S. Department of Education divulged nonpublic details about new rules being considered to regulate for-profit educational institutions to outsiders, including Steven Eisman, former managing director of FrontPoint Partners LLC, who held short positions in the sector.
Education Department spokesman Justin Hamilton denies any impropriety. Eisman hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
In October, Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa asked hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone for copies of all communications between his Harbinger Capital Partners and the Department of Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission and the White House. Grassley is looking into whether Falcone improperly sought to influence regulators and the White House while seeking approvals for LightSquared Inc., the company constructing a broadband wireless network his fund is bankrolling.
‘Government Information’
Robin Roger, general counsel for the fund’s management firm, says any assertion that the fund or LightSquared tried to improperly influence regulators is unfounded.
For government officials, the leaking of market-sensitive information, even if inadvertent, represents an ethical minefield.
“There’s a lot of government information out there, and the hedge funds are trying to get it,” says Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who advised the Bush administration on Paulson’s sale of his Goldman stock when he became Treasury secretary. “It’s a huge problem that has to be addressed.”
The rules for what can or cannot be disclosed by government officials are often either unclear or nonexistent.
Tipping Hands
“The bottom line is that senior-level people in Washington, in the name of keeping in touch with their stakeholders, are tipping their hands,” says Adam Zagorin, a senior fellow at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “You can’t prosecute them for insider trading if they didn’t trade the shares. You may not be able to even reprimand them. What the hell are the rules?”
An official such as Paulson has no legal obligation to keep material nonpublic information to himself, says Phillip Kaplan, partner for litigation at Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP, where he specializes in securities and class-action cases.
“I don’t think a government person is liable,” he says. “He didn’t profit from the information or trade on it.”
In the rapidly evolving world of insider-trading prosecutions, that could change, says the University of Illinois’s Ribstein, adding that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is taking a broader view of what constitutes insider trading. SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami, who can bring only civil cases, and the Justice Department, which can mount criminal prosecutions, have cast their net wide, Ribstein says.
Small Players Sued
In addition to going after big names like Rajaratnam and Gupta, the authorities are suing and indicting smaller players who might not have been prosecuted in the past, like accountants and analysts at so-called expert networks, who sell their expertise to hedge funds.
The University of Missouri’s Black says there’s no question that the plan to take over Fannie and Freddie -- however uncertain -- was material nonpublic information that could not be lawfully traded on. “What Paulson said put those managers in an untenable position,” he says. “They were exposed to all kinds of liabilities.”
The situation also generates some sympathy for Paulson.
“It seems to me, you’ve got to cut the guy some slack, even if he tipped his hand,” says William Poole, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “How do you prepare the market for the fact that policy has changed without triggering the very crisis that you’re trying to avoid? What is he supposed to say without misleading these people?”
Market Insights
Poole says government officials need to communicate with industry participants in order to gain insights into market conditions and gauge likely reaction to interventions.
Black says the Eton Park meeting was the wrong way to communicate to the markets.
“Wink, wink, nod, nod is no way to approach sensitive information,” he says.
Paulson often contacted Wall Street participants throughout his tenure, according to his calendar. On that July trip to New York alone, he talked to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. CEO Richard Fuld, Washington Mutual Inc. CEO Kerry Killinger and Citigroup senior adviser Rubin.
Morgan Stanley and BlackRock Inc. both helped the Federal Reserve and OCC prepare the reports on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that Paulson told the New York Times would instill confidence the morning of the Eton Park meeting.
‘Unsafe and Unsound’
Paulson learned by mid-August that the Federal Reserve had found the GSEs “unsafe and unsound,” he told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which was appointed by President Barack Obama and Congress to probe the causes of the financial collapse.
“We’d been prepared for bad news, but the extent of the problems was startling,” he wrote in “On the Brink.”
On Sept. 6, when the GSEs’ boards agreed to have their companies placed in conservatorship, full-year 2008 losses were projected to reach as much as $50 billion for Fannie Mae and $32 billion for Freddie Mac. In October 2011, the FHFA estimated the cost to taxpayers of rescuing the firms at $124 billion through 2014.
The manager who described the Eton Park meeting says he also discussed it with an investigator from the FCIC. The discussion was confirmed by a former FCIC employee.
That manager says he ended up profiting from his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac positions because he was already short the stocks. On his lawyer’s advice, he stopped covering his short positions and rode Fannie and Freddie shares all the way to the bottom.
To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Teitelbaum in New York at rteitelbaum1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Serrill at mserrill@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-29/...08-fannie-mae-rescue.html
"Der Glaube versetzt Berge, nichts ist entschieden ..."
wie schon von mir vormals zitiert......G l a u b e n heißt nichts wissen !!!!!!
wenn man so ihr niveauvolles Posting196281 betrachtet.....trifft voll auf sie "Koryphäe" zu!
grins,grins
User Pfandbrief aus W.O......
Es geht darum, ob man Steuern zahlen muss auf das viele Geld ( :rolleyes: ) das man eines Tages aus den Escrows bezieht. Handeln wir es halt mal wieder ab (es ist natürlich schon geschehen).
Die Einstandskurse der Altbestände wurden am effective date auf WMIH umgerechnet. Das heißt, die zusätzlich erhaltenen escrows sind eine Sachausschüttung und mit Einstandskurs Null zu bewerten. Das wiederum heißt, dass der Normalwamuianer auf Verkaufserlöse aus WMIH Aktien NICHTS bezahlt (da mit Verlust verkauft) aber die Erlöse aus den Escrows mit Abgeltungssteuer voll belegt werden.
Dass das so war war ein Riesenglück für die Wamuianer, man hätte nämlich mit einigem Recht auch die Einstandskurse auf die Escrows übertragen können, und stattdessen die WMIH Aktien als zusätzliche Sachausschüttung betrachten können. Dann wären alle Verkaufserlöse aus WMIH Aktien mit Abgeltungssteuer zu belegen gewesen, also nicht nur Gewinne, sondern ALLES. Und glaubt mir: das ist mehr als was bei den Escrows rauskommt!
Falls am Ende allfällige Erlöse auf Escrows direkt über die Depotbanken laufen, kommt also Abgeltungssteuer in voller Höhe. Geht man aber so vor wie bei den vorrangigen Klassen, und gibt LTIs aus, gibt's natürlich keine Abgeltungssteuer, dann muss man selbstverständlich die "Schecks" selbst versteuern, wenn nicht, ist's halt Hinterziehung. Freilich werden keine Schecks kommen, sondern wenn überhaupt runoff notes, das machts dann nochmals komplizierter, aber es läuft wohl darauf hinaus, dass dann Erlöse aus den runoff notes zu versteuern wären...."
"Also ich bin bei den Escrows ganz entspannt. Und wenn da keiner automatisch Steuern abzieht, sehe ich die Escrows als steuerfrei an. Ich sehe das dann als steuerfreies Entschädigungsgeschenk von "drüben" an!
Wäre ja noch schöner, wenn ich am Ende auch das Taschengeld meiner Tochter noch versteuern müsste..."
wie wahr, wie wahr Herr User Union.......mehr als Taschengeld wird es bei den Escrows
wohl nicht werden......grins !!
Apropos Taschengeld.......ich hoffe das User Union wenigstens eine klitzekleine Ahnung
davon hat, was runoff notes bedeuten ?
einfach googeln oder vielleicht noch besser.......einfach Pfandbrief fragen.....
grins,grins
auf W.O gibts mal wieder eine Lehrstunde für Cruzador vom Schwarzwälder einfach super.
(W)inner solltest es dir mal reinziehen kannste was lernen vor allem in Deutsch...
und nimm Astra mit der/die/das kann es auf keinen Fall schaden!
Und auf alle Fälle wenn ihr Geld verlieren wollt hört auf (W)inner (Commerzbank Investor) und Pfandbrief (nirgends investiert).
http://www.wallstreet-online.de/diskussion/...der-usa-chancen-risiken
...cruz, pfandi und co. nehmen den bloedel-thread schon seit jahren nicht mehr ernst...und wenn man auch nur 2, 3 postings von euch liest, weiss der laie warum...
schon lustig, dass du es ueberhaupt wagst, vergleiche zwischen z.b. cruz und bloedel- schwarzi anzustellen...ein achtel cruz steckt die gesamte gemeinde drueben 5 mal in einen sack...immer wieder amuesant festzustellen, dass die bloedel-user mit den groessten verlusten die klappe am weitesten aufreissen...
und hoer bitte auf hier mal wieder herumzuluegen...winner hat seine coba-shares damals bei ca. 1,60 euro o umgerechneten jetzigen 16 euro mit gewinn vertickt...ist ganz einfach nachzulesen...aber wen interessieren fakten, wenn sie einem gerade nicht passen...ist ja auch durchgehend bei den komikern drueben festzustellen...
du weisst sicherlich, dass pfandbrief damals bei all-time-high seine wmih-shares schnell vertickert hat, oder?!...zudem hat er die ausbuchung prognostiziert und genau um diese marke herum schwirrt der wmih-kurs seit ueber 1,5 jahren...umgerechnete 0,01x euro...
damit lag pb wesentlich naeher als 99 prozent der komiker drueben, die 8, 10, 20 oder gar 200 $ vorhergesagt haben...und die allergroessten pusher und luegner haben jetzt offziell zugegeben, dass sie ihre scheinchen mittlerweile auch schon verkauft haben...zu 0,02 euro...und nicht zu 8-200 $...
aber ist schon klar justi...euer fachthread hat immer recht....-)
das du nicht verstanden hast.
Pfandbrief, VanDelftchen, (W)inner usw. und die vorhergesagte Ausbuchung...
Wenn ich richtig sehe ist der momentane Wert bei..na wieviel Aststrachen ???
Ist das ausgebucht ???
Ich denke du hast nun wieder genug Blö...nn gepostet für die kommende Woche.
In Post 196262 behauptest du Faster hätte geschmissen.
Das ist so nicht richtig, solltest es mal richtig stellen,
sonst bekommst du auch eine Pinokionase.
justi, justi...freu dich ueber deinen erstrittenen gluecks-cent...dieser wird sich bestimmt irgendwann ver-800, ver-1000 o ver-50000-fachen...man muss nur fest daran glauben ...lol
könntest du mal erklären wie du auf die Prozentzahl kommst:
Zitat:
damit lag pb wesentlich naeher als 99 prozent der komiker drueben, die 8, 10, 20 oder gar 200 $ vorhergesagt haben...und die allergroessten pusher und luegner haben jetzt offziell zugegeben, dass sie ihre scheinchen mittlerweile auch schon verkauft haben...zu 0,02 euro...und nicht zu 8-200 $...
Ich weis ja nicht aber warst du mal auf der Schule ?? Ich meine nicht eine Baumschule. Sowas wir Hauptschule ? Ja ? Hattet ihr da irgendwelche komischen Fächer?? So mit Zahlen und so???
Man du bist ein Schlauchchen
Wer zu welchem Zeitpunkt was geschrieben hat.
Vielleicht. Ändert sich dein Meinungsbild zu bestimmten Usern.
zeig doch mal die Postings in denen geschrieben steht das sie geschmissen habe.
Oder hatten sie nur geschrieben einen Teil verkauft zu haben um den EK zu verbessern
Na Langnase wie sieht es nun aus
soll ich jetzt die passagen raussuchen oder was?!...du liest doch ganz bestimmt jeden tag den unsinn von drueben...somit hast du doch sehr wohl mitbekommen, dass faster vor ein paar tagen geschrieben hat, dass er einmal bei ca. 90 cent und 60 cent (umgerechnete 2,x cent ) vertickert hat...id hat schon vor laengerem verkauft und das koennen auch nur 1, 2 cent gewesen sein...zu mehr hats in ueber 1, 5 jahren kurstechnisch ja nicht gereicht...
Auch wollte er wenn die Entwicklung so eingetreten wäre wie er meinte sich von
seinen Preffs zu trennen und Commons zu kaufen. Faster war immer ehrlich.
Lies dir mal Maschkis Beitrag durch er trifft es auf den Kopf.
Ich für meinen Teil diverenziere wann hat einer was gesagt und was ist eingetreten.
Wenn bei Wamu alles gerecht gelaufen wäre, dann wären auch andere Kurse erzielt
worden, aber das weißt du ja selber.
wie waers denn damit, zu belegen, dass winnerchen angeblich immer noch auf seinen coba-verlusten haengt...so wie du geschrieben hast...mmhh?!..
zu teilverkaufen von faster...lass es teil-verkauefe sein...meine frage an dich...warum sollten es teilverkaeufe sei, um angeblich seinen einstandspreis zu verbessern?!...moechte er seinen preis von z.b. 1,56 cent auf 1,54 cent verbessern?!...viel besser kanns nicht werden...selbst wenn der wmi-kurs sich halbieren sollte, wuerde das kaum was ausmachen...zweite frage...faster hatte doch mindestens! 8 $ im blick...warum sollte er dann teil-verkaufen?!
und jetzt nochmal fakten..kann mir mal einer erklaeren, warum seit 1, 5 jahren gar nix kommt seitens fuehrung...und wie das mickrige ek sich von ein paar millionen in milliarden verwandeln sollen...?!
justi, justi...putz deinen gluecks-cent nochmal ganz ,ganz tuechtig...vielleicht kommt noch die gaaaaanz dicke smoking gun....-)
gerecht?!...unsere hochqualifizierte vertretung, das beste am damaligen markt, UNSERE! vertretung, das ec, hat festgestellt, dass alles rechtens war und nix! da war...das ec war am nahesten dran, hatte den besten einblick in die fakten ...und KEIN faster oder sonstwer...faster ist ein kleiner, aussenstehender aktionaer, der meinte, aus weiter entfernung, ohne einblick in die akten u fakten, alles! ganz genau zu wissen...punkt...
wenn du jetzt von ungerecht redest, bist du verblendet u ignorierst fakten...verschwoerungstheorien ins leben zu rufen, ist dann natuerlich immer die bequemste loesung...
hei Langnase wo bleibt die Erklärung wie du auf die Prozentzahl kommst??
Oder war das wieder nur so ein Spruch wie immer ohne Hintergund einfach aus dem blauen reingeblögt??
Na komm zeig uns mal deine Berechnung.