Only Goldman Sachs can get away with Illegal Insider Trading

Alexander P Morris — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:33:04 +0000

It’s kind of ironic how Martha Stewart became the poster child for cracking down on insider trading activity, even though it was never even proven or substantiated. For those of you that remember the movie Airplane with Leslie Nielsen, it reminds me of the scene where the police officers detain the little old lady while allowing a dozen terrorists to walk right through the security gate armed with bazookas. Now with Goldman Sachs, we’re faced with likely the greatest inside information and market manipulation scheme of all time — way larger than the usual trading on inside information that seems to go on every day in the markets. And once again, I doubt a single one of the people responsible will end up in jail over it (let alone receive anything much more than a slap on the wrist, if that). More likely, it’ll be brushed under the rug with the rest of the manure and never heard of again. But should we really expect anything different from our government, which at this point exists as little more than a taxpayer-subsidized wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldman Sachs?! Shhhh, thou shalt not use the lordGoldman’s name in vain!

It was also quite telling that Goldman was able to have the FBI detain their programmer Sergey Aleynikov within a day’s notice on charges that the theft of their code was an issue of national security as it could enable others to manipulate the markets. Of course, I’m sure that’s not what Goldman would be using it for (uh huh)… But I suppose that the Plunge Protection Team a.k.a. Goldman Sachs does require “special access” to the markets to do its job and assure it stays in the black (and then sooooome).

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DENDREON’S 70% PORK OVER BY THE NASD

Alexander P Morris — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 23:27:09 +0000

Here’s to another great oversight job by the SEC and the NASD. For anyone who caught any of the trading in Dendreon today (NASD:DNDN), this is exactly the type of situation that can be the death of you as a trader. Once you see it unfolding, the best thing you can do is STAY THE HELL AWAY. For those of you who missed all the “fun”, basically DNDN tanked nearly 70% in a bit over two minutes from 1:25pm to 1:27pm down to around $7.75 and was halted a few minutes later. Trading did not resume until 6:15pm when the stock reopened at about $24 per share and traded as high as $27.65 within minutes before pulling back a bit. You think maybe a few people got caught in the early fun and games that took place by some market-manipulating private trading elite? I’d bet on it…

The Nasdaq Stock Market said it was investigating two minutes worth of transactions in Dendreon Corp because they may have resulted from a brokerage error. Transactions executed between 1:25pm and 1:27pm were under review, the New York-based exchange said in an e-mailed statement. Anyone who made any trades in DNDN during that time were now panicking due to the trading halt, since they have no clue what their position would be by the time it’s all over (as the stock may gap huge and/or the trades may be broken). In such a case, if it was really some massive broker error or some other strange sheistery, the proper way to handle it would have been to BREAK EVERY TRANSACTION right up to the time just before the debacle began. But, that would of course mean that those politically-connected friends of the NASD who made a fortune from this mess (you know, like Bernie Madoff until he went just a wee bit too far) would have to give it all back, and that’s just NOT PLAYING FAIR!

So, the Nasdaq Stock Market announced that it would let stand those hairy two minutes worth of transactions in Dendreon that it initially suspected were the result of a brokerage error! Nasdaq announced its decision in an e-mailed statement at 3:06pm. The statement also asserted that the ruling “cannot be appealed”. Of course not… then their pals couldn’t have booked their 100%+ of porkified profits once DNDN reopened for trading later in the day!

Getting caught in something like this is a trader’s worst nightmare, and my heart goes out to any trader who may have been sideswiped and reamed in the rear by the elite powers that be.

What can be learned from this? Trading is war, and you’re on your own. Your only protection is that you’re always in control of your position size. Remember the importance of discipline, and always consider worst-case scenarios when managing risk. Speaking of which, anyone else notice some of the “Swine Flu” stocks may be attempting to build new higher bases today (ie. NVAX, BCRX)?

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Only Goldman Sachs can get away with Illegal Insider Trading

DENDREON’S 70% PORK OVER BY THE NASD