Baltbear on Finance markets are like marshmallows

someone elsewhere suggested to me that trading is closely watched by the sec.
yeah.
:” The report also alleges the two lawyers maintained separate folders entitled “stocks” in their e-mail accounts and that they often sent e-mails from their SEC account about stocks and their own transactions.

It is not clear whether this violates SEC rules.

One lawyer sent e-mails to his brother and sister-in-law from his SEC e-mail account during the work day recommending particular stocks and sometimes informing his relatives that the other lawyer had also recommended them, the report alleges.

Kotz’s office, which is investigating how the SEC handled the Bernard Madoff case, obtained and reviewed more than two years of e-mail records of the two SEC lawyers and the enforcement staffer. His office also reviewed their personnel folders and conduct folders.

An SEC spokesman said: “We note that the report neither accuses any SEC employee of insider trading nor concludes that any such conduct took place.”"

that’s how closely..

can an sec employee tell someone outside th sec that an investigation has been opened into somet ticker?
demanding tha that the info be made public violates “workin notes” protection on freedom in information.
that doesn’t mean that an sec employee cannot ask a hypothetical question of a lawyer associate over martinis at elaine’s
about a financial servies company’s possible soon to be 90% loss of mkt cap while absentmindedly and without intent doodling letters on a napkin.

in the market you have no friends.

john f kennedy: “where there is smoke, there is a smoke machine.”
up or down, before you know about it, somebody else does…and has already acted on their knowledge.

Posted under business

the “testing” of the u.s. banking system having been “completed”, the idea that there is $75 billion hole to be filled was met by the idea that banks ahould sell stock before people realise it’s overpriced.

“U.S. banks are racing to tap equity markets that have soared since early March and may pull back soon, analysts said. Bank of America said it plans to sell 1.25 billion shares to help meet its $33.9 billion equity capital shortfall.

“You have this opportunity to sell equity now, and if you don’t and share prices fall, people will criticize you,” said William Smith, chief executive officer of Smith Asset Management.”

ok. sell stock while its overpriced or get criticised. who are these critics?
probably not the people who bought at the high price.
but then, they are the sheep, and as was noted in the maginicient 7, “of God did not want them shorn, why did He make them sheep?”
how is stealing from new shareholders a duty of an equity? cause cut thru the nonsense and that’s what it is. “sell it before somebody figures out the price is too high.” it is refreshing that an “asset manager” is saying this publicly. so, ask yourself, “is he a potential buyer or a current owner?” ad youmight get a different impulse than to run right out and buy more of anything known to be selling above a fair value estimate.

People playing biotechs and “internet” stocks might wish to be aware that rbs used to be a serious funder of such flyers, but:
“Royal Bank of Scotland, now 70 percent state-owned, fell to a loss in the first three months of 2009 after bad debts quadrupled to 2.9 billion and it took a 2.1 billion pound writedown on risky assets.”

what are “risky assets”? a good place for traders to measure is d/e, and debt terms.
what are creditors willing to take in stock to balance the books? unless you can afford to take more risks than an investment bank, you probably want to pay less than creditors will accept.

that can be done by “trading into accumulation.” it is in fact what many of the ibs do along with their direct involvement to make sure they profit.

Posted under business

Rolling Stone, which has almost redeemed itself by paying attention to the economy for a change, had a recent article about the insiders from goldman-sachs taking a large bite out of the future faith and cresit of the government of the usa. sadly enough, as part of its maintaining its perpetual whininess, it describes some evil plot in which people who cannot put “credit default swap” into an intelligible sentence are being picked on by people who can.
my answer to those who complain that they do know what a toxic debenture is? learn or shut up. if people can be bothered to “research” the love lives of stevie nicks and lindsey buckingham, they can learn to keep track of how the economy works.

When the prudent speculator is testing a story stock, it is usually quite useful to look for so-called stock boards, like
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/mb/BTIM.OB
where the legitimacy of the views being put forth by present holders can be tested.
another might be:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/community/message/topicsandtickers.asp?Symbol=BTIM
o. look. msn doesn’t bother with stocks kicked off the national exchanges and lurking around on bulletin boards.
john f. kennedy once said about lobbyists of varying kinds, “where there is smoke there is a smoke machine.”
on penny stocks there is an entire smoke industry (which oddly enough, does not ave an naics number). a way to hunt down the smoke from the fire is to look in filings for “investment services” being documented with transfers of stock or cash (sometimes both) t create “buzz.” that buzz will first go to preferred suckers on the phone, then to less preferred subscribers to “investment letters” and once that’s in place, then to whatever stock board or chat room somebody can post to.
a clue to such posters is that they generally refer to any discussion of th story or the fundamentals  as “paid bashing” by “evil shorts” etc.
the saddest cases happen when somebody who thinks equities trading is like football fandom becomes a brain dead cheerleader for the story, and continually hhypes about some future price, like..5, or 12..or “when the puppy is on the nasdaq national market” and offers that as the only dd he has. thirty years ago, when penn state et al were starting the snowball rolling, fleetwood mac sang about breaking a chain,  a story believed without due diligence.

Posted under business