MARKET MANIPULATION alive & well
I know this may not seem like news, but with the low volume of trading activity and collusion among brokers, mutual funds, hedge funds and specialists at the NYSE, it seems fairly obvious that all interested parties are manipulating stock price action, probably by using market basket ETF's, in order to lock in performance #'s and their annual bonuses. The investing public has no clue and is just fine seeing the market stay above 10,000 so they can feel better about there holiday shopping budget.
What is very confusing and concerning is why the so called "smart" market players are not reacting to things that they normally would react to, including but not limited to the following >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
OIL @ $34/brl and OPEC contemplating cuts in production in feb. Natural gas $6.50/btu and shortages foreseen. metals including silver, platinum, nickle, copper, paladium, and gold all at multi year highs. The US$ continuing to press out new lows vs. Euro, Pound, Swiss franc, and Yen. Hints of deflation at the consumer level, first time in 21 years that core consumer prices dropped. Huge deficits in budget and trade that are not being addressed in any meaningful way.
Still no major public outrage about the corruption and fraud at the largest mutual funds or the NYSE, as the regulators seemingly stay out in front with comments about how they will fix what was wrong and how it won't happen again...even as it continues to happen NOW!
It seems to me that way too many interested parties are on the same side of a very unbalanced see-saw, all hoping that the important issues i just mentioned get overlooked until they get back from holiday vacations. I guess we will have to see if there will be an exciting finish to this years stellar market performance or if we can just glide in for a perfect landing. Hopefully, all the interested parties will be able to enjoy the holidays without having to come back to their offices early to deal with something that goes horribly wrong with the perfect landing scenario.
Enjoy the holidays and have a happy, healthy, and grateful New Year!
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Thursday, December 04, 2003
A FEW BAD APPLES
it has been repeatedly said over the past few years, that it was just "a few bad apples" that were responsible for the corporate malfeasence and fraud that occurred during the boom of the 1990's. as time goes on, it seems that there were more than just a few bad apples responsible for the corporate scandals that fleeced the investing public. if we use ENRON as the start and follow the news coverage to where we are currently uncovering a widespread mutual fund trading scandal, the few have clearly turned to many and i fear that the many will turn into alot.
it started off slowly with the uncovering of the enron fraud. lay, skilling, and fastow along with the investment bankers, arthur andersen and probably the unknowing aide of the vice president and his energy task force. to date, the only apple that has been punished is arthur andersen and its top notch cpa's that created the books for the corporation. ernst & young got to stay in business but has had to pay lots of fines for assisting other companies in various frauds, including illegal tax evasion schemes. from there, and in no specific order, we had tyco's kozlowsky and sullivan, worldcoms ebbers, and adelphias rigis family. we've had tenet healthcares barbakow and healthsouths scrushy scamming medicare. we had martha stewarts and imclone's waksul fiasco. we've had bristol meyers forcing drugs on wholesalers to meet eps estimates. we continued with aol/time warners advertising scam, and interpublic groups misdeeds. we've had bad apples in the nyse trading pits with the labranche scalping clients pennies by jumping a front a few too many times and other specialists being investigated for the same. we've had to clean house at the nyse because the BOD paid the CEO too much. we've had foriegn currency trading scam and an energy trading scam. we have had corporate espionage at boeing and huge defense contracts awarded to the presidents ceo buddies with no bidding. we have had the investment banks in unison claim they did nothing wrong in there research divisions, yet pay $1.4 billion back to investors due to conflict of interest violations. freddie mac miscalculated eps for the last 3 years to by $4.5billion. ceo's of some of the largest mutual fund companies have been indicted for fraud including pilgrim & baxter, strong and others are under investigation. now we are uncovering that mutual funds were gaming the public with the help of hedge funds and brokerage houses each accepting fees along the way. names include janus, prudential, putnam and alliance, all of which oversee billions of dollars in assets belonging to state and corporate pension funds.
without the efforts of elliot spitzer and his team of investigators, most of the above crimes and indiscretions, would have never been uncovered. the SEC along with the other self regulatory agencies, were unaware and unconcerned about continued violations of securities laws being broken and disregarded by almost every player in the industry. even now, the SRO's are hesitant to punish and prevent further abuses.
A FEW BAD APPLES?! maybe a few bad apples at every large publicly traded company and at every investment firm, mutual fund company, stock exchange and self regulatory agency. when it is looked with a broader perspective, it seems to me that there was a kind of coordinated effort to rip off the investing public. a sort of conspiracy between the
investment banks, public companies, mutual funds, self regulatory agencies and accounting firms to create an investing environment that hides risk and overstates returns.
unless the culture of greed in corporate america and the environment of biased and unchecked investment advice is radically reformed, the capital markets will remain corrupted, inefficient and very risky.
it has been repeatedly said over the past few years, that it was just "a few bad apples" that were responsible for the corporate malfeasence and fraud that occurred during the boom of the 1990's. as time goes on, it seems that there were more than just a few bad apples responsible for the corporate scandals that fleeced the investing public. if we use ENRON as the start and follow the news coverage to where we are currently uncovering a widespread mutual fund trading scandal, the few have clearly turned to many and i fear that the many will turn into alot.
it started off slowly with the uncovering of the enron fraud. lay, skilling, and fastow along with the investment bankers, arthur andersen and probably the unknowing aide of the vice president and his energy task force. to date, the only apple that has been punished is arthur andersen and its top notch cpa's that created the books for the corporation. ernst & young got to stay in business but has had to pay lots of fines for assisting other companies in various frauds, including illegal tax evasion schemes. from there, and in no specific order, we had tyco's kozlowsky and sullivan, worldcoms ebbers, and adelphias rigis family. we've had tenet healthcares barbakow and healthsouths scrushy scamming medicare. we had martha stewarts and imclone's waksul fiasco. we've had bristol meyers forcing drugs on wholesalers to meet eps estimates. we continued with aol/time warners advertising scam, and interpublic groups misdeeds. we've had bad apples in the nyse trading pits with the labranche scalping clients pennies by jumping a front a few too many times and other specialists being investigated for the same. we've had to clean house at the nyse because the BOD paid the CEO too much. we've had foriegn currency trading scam and an energy trading scam. we have had corporate espionage at boeing and huge defense contracts awarded to the presidents ceo buddies with no bidding. we have had the investment banks in unison claim they did nothing wrong in there research divisions, yet pay $1.4 billion back to investors due to conflict of interest violations. freddie mac miscalculated eps for the last 3 years to by $4.5billion. ceo's of some of the largest mutual fund companies have been indicted for fraud including pilgrim & baxter, strong and others are under investigation. now we are uncovering that mutual funds were gaming the public with the help of hedge funds and brokerage houses each accepting fees along the way. names include janus, prudential, putnam and alliance, all of which oversee billions of dollars in assets belonging to state and corporate pension funds.
without the efforts of elliot spitzer and his team of investigators, most of the above crimes and indiscretions, would have never been uncovered. the SEC along with the other self regulatory agencies, were unaware and unconcerned about continued violations of securities laws being broken and disregarded by almost every player in the industry. even now, the SRO's are hesitant to punish and prevent further abuses.
A FEW BAD APPLES?! maybe a few bad apples at every large publicly traded company and at every investment firm, mutual fund company, stock exchange and self regulatory agency. when it is looked with a broader perspective, it seems to me that there was a kind of coordinated effort to rip off the investing public. a sort of conspiracy between the
investment banks, public companies, mutual funds, self regulatory agencies and accounting firms to create an investing environment that hides risk and overstates returns.
unless the culture of greed in corporate america and the environment of biased and unchecked investment advice is radically reformed, the capital markets will remain corrupted, inefficient and very risky.
Monday, December 01, 2003
HOW'S YOUR RESOLVE HOLDING UP?
at the recent british-american summit, president bush and prime minister blair made statements about the most recent terror attacks in turkey and bahgdad. while expressing grief and horror about the attacks against innocent civilians and calling the terrorists evil, they both said that the latest attacks "strengthen their resolve" to continue the fight and complete the mission of ridding the planet of terrorists. after the bloodiest month for casualties since the war began, resolve must be at or near all-time highs for the two leaders. what may be more important, is the resolve of the american soldiers.
without a plan of any kind or a date certain for getting out of iraq, it seems as though the troops are in the midst of a full scale escalation of military force being directed at soft targets, which they seem unable to defend, and against military targets which they are woefully unprepared for. our troops are in the middle of a full out guerrila war while our government and civilian contractors are trying to rebuild the ravaged country so that the iraqi population will start to support the troops, rather than loathe them.
our leaders have told us that the major conflict was over in may. now, a full 6 months later, the major combat is clearly still on, and the risks and casualties are mounting. the iraqi resistance is becoming bolder and more successful with each attack, and the civilian population is scared at best and angry at worst. the US government claims they were ready and prepared for a long hard battle, yet the soldiers and american population are not ready for such a circumstance. in fact, our president and secretary of defense still is touting the successes of the war.
from my standpoint and the standpoint of many others, there has been no 'real' success and the situation has become far worse. terror attacks around the world have increased dramatically since the invasion of iraq. we havent caught saddam or osama. we havent found WMD's in iraq, or anywhere else for that matter. threats of bigger and more devastating terror attacks have been broadcast loud and clear. no real global support, either financial or military, has been forthcoming from any other nation. the 9/11 report still doesnt acknowledge the saudi factor. and we are still claimimng success?
the president uses the word 'resolve' to let us know that he is 100% committed to the war he began, regardless of what american or world opinion is, yet his resolve will not win the war or stop terror. the 'resolve' of our troops and the american people, along with the support of the rest of the world will be necessary to achieve anything close to success.
at the recent british-american summit, president bush and prime minister blair made statements about the most recent terror attacks in turkey and bahgdad. while expressing grief and horror about the attacks against innocent civilians and calling the terrorists evil, they both said that the latest attacks "strengthen their resolve" to continue the fight and complete the mission of ridding the planet of terrorists. after the bloodiest month for casualties since the war began, resolve must be at or near all-time highs for the two leaders. what may be more important, is the resolve of the american soldiers.
without a plan of any kind or a date certain for getting out of iraq, it seems as though the troops are in the midst of a full scale escalation of military force being directed at soft targets, which they seem unable to defend, and against military targets which they are woefully unprepared for. our troops are in the middle of a full out guerrila war while our government and civilian contractors are trying to rebuild the ravaged country so that the iraqi population will start to support the troops, rather than loathe them.
our leaders have told us that the major conflict was over in may. now, a full 6 months later, the major combat is clearly still on, and the risks and casualties are mounting. the iraqi resistance is becoming bolder and more successful with each attack, and the civilian population is scared at best and angry at worst. the US government claims they were ready and prepared for a long hard battle, yet the soldiers and american population are not ready for such a circumstance. in fact, our president and secretary of defense still is touting the successes of the war.
from my standpoint and the standpoint of many others, there has been no 'real' success and the situation has become far worse. terror attacks around the world have increased dramatically since the invasion of iraq. we havent caught saddam or osama. we havent found WMD's in iraq, or anywhere else for that matter. threats of bigger and more devastating terror attacks have been broadcast loud and clear. no real global support, either financial or military, has been forthcoming from any other nation. the 9/11 report still doesnt acknowledge the saudi factor. and we are still claimimng success?
the president uses the word 'resolve' to let us know that he is 100% committed to the war he began, regardless of what american or world opinion is, yet his resolve will not win the war or stop terror. the 'resolve' of our troops and the american people, along with the support of the rest of the world will be necessary to achieve anything close to success.