posted
a CEO posting on message boards and giving SPR interviews is highly "irregular" to say the least...
(i think) people owning more than 5% of a companies stock also fall under different guidelines than "ordinary" investors do(i think)
i'm not clear on what is legal or illegal about it, since we haven't seen any charges against them yet? we'll have to wait to find out...
one other thing? it's very hard to be sure these really are the people they claim to be without conducting an investigation, and i HOPE the SEC is doing it...
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by justmakinmoney: Highly unlikely that message is real.
If you are talking about the Rufus message, it sounds just like him.
THe one thing that has bothered me the most about Rufus is the fact that he listens to people contacting him whether through emails, phone or messages boards. He sometimes takes them for their word instead of doing his own DD and makes baltant comments. Look at the whole fiasco with the CEO message to IHUB and now HSM. I don't like that he goes off half cocked.
Not saying it's the only thing I don't like but definately not a good quality.
GLTA Wally
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
wow, the mod. at hsm is not playing around anymore.
Yesterday he closed it done for an hour or two, now it is closed until sometime over the weekend. If anyone tries to open a thread on cshd, they will be banned.
Hi, Glass, How ya doing? We will be good here. Posts: 360 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
Its not that bad that he closed it down, 85% of that thread was useless crap that shouldve been kept to pm's.
Posts: 854 | From: Alpharetta, GA | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Overstock.com Announces Lawsuit Against Prime Brokers Friday February 2, 4:20 pm ET Seeks $3.48 Billion in Damages
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTK - News) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco against Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Goldman Sachs & Co., Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., Bank of America Securities LLC, Bank of New York, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse (USA) Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., UBS Financial Services, Inc., and others. Certain shareholders of the company have joined Overstock.com in the suit. The suit alleges that the defendants, who control over 80% of the prime brokerage market, participated in a massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme and that the defendants had no intention of covering such orders with borrowed stock, as they are required to do, causing what are referred to as "fails to deliver." The suit also alleges that the defendants' actions cause.... http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070202/laf041.html?.v=83
-------------------- Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise. Posts: 36378 | From: USA | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: Overstock.com Announces Lawsuit Against Prime Brokers Friday February 2, 4:20 pm ET Seeks $3.48 Billion in Damages
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTK - News) announced today that it has filed a lawsuit in the Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco against Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated, Goldman Sachs & Co., Bear Stearns Companies, Inc., Bank of America Securities LLC, Bank of New York, Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse (USA) Inc., Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., UBS Financial Services, Inc., and others. Certain shareholders of the company have joined Overstock.com in the suit. The suit alleges that the defendants, who control over 80% of the prime brokerage market, participated in a massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme and that the defendants had no intention of covering such orders with borrowed stock, as they are required to do, causing what are referred to as "fails to deliver." The suit also alleges that the defendants' actions cause.... http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070202/laf041.html?.v=83
Looks like somebody decided to take action instead of talk about it. Wow, and he didn't have to get the stock delisted to do it. Amazing I guess. Hopefully the suit in and of itself will cause a ripple effect and help straighten out the situation or even bring enough exposure so that it gets more than lip service. But who really knows.
Good Luck Wally
Posts: 3255 | From: Los Angeles California | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Figures...I finally get here and everyone's gone home (or to HSM for some humor). We ended up for the day so that was good. No news though. OK now we just need to wait for the SUPERBOWL and we can all start over again Monday.
Mark this week down on your calendars. In fact, do it Jim Cramer style: take a sharpie and write in big black letters across the entire week “THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE END!”
After years of calls for stock market reform being ignored by the SEC, by Congress, by Wall Street, and by the media, the tide has finally begun to turn. After decades of the average investor being first lured into, then robbed blind in the stock market by Wall Street insiders, major brokerage firms, and hedge funds while our federal officials sat idly by and watched, or worse yet, participated in the splitting up of the loot, there is light at the end of what up until now has been a dark tunnel. A couple of major events this week signaled impending defeat for those who have conspired to rob our country blind in blatant disregard of the very values upon which America was founded.
The first event took place, as is often the case in the world of politics, behind closed doors. A Tuesday afternoon phone call from a person who has long been a behind-the-scenes advocate for returning honesty and integrity to our financial markets first gave me reason to feel renewed hope. This is someone who has been working quietly but tirelessly to help those of us who have been sounding the alarm for years, the same person who helped to set up a Senate Banking Committee hearing over two years ago, only to have it killed by then Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL).
This is the gist of that phone call: Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT), one of the few members of Congress whose hands seem to be clean enough to speak out for America on this issue, has been educating the new Democratic Chairman of the Banking Committee, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) on the issues of stock market fraud. According to Bennett, Dodd is “open to discussing the issue,” and to possibly reopening the hearing into the SEC in the Senate Banking Committee…or should I say open to conducting the hearings that were never allowed to take place in 2005. Meetings were set up to discuss the issue, and I forwarded a few relevant articles to give to Sen. Dodd in hopes of showing that even recent tepid efforts by the SEC to deal with fraud were nothing more than slaps on the wrists, fines generally amounting to a fraction of the damage done to companies and shareholders.
Along with the articles to back it up, I sent this short email at 3 in the morning after driving 350 miles from beautiful Lubbock, TX. on a business trip, back home to Middle America, USA:
Here are a couple of recent articles about hedge funds and naked short selling. The issue is finally beginning to receive some mainstream limited press, and the SEC is still essentially doing nothing to stop it. Hedge funds still aren't regulated, and the ones that are caught receive slaps on the wrist.
In recent months, in case after case, the SEC has negotiated fines that have a huge disconnect with the amount of money stolen and the damage done to companies and investors, and usually with the perpetrator "neither denying or admitting guilt." The fines are so small that they have become merely a cost of doing business.
Recently, Eagletech won a decision against the DTC to have an estimated 40,000 pages of documents concerning alleged trading violations released to the company's attorneys, although no charges have been filed yet.
Novastar has had some favorable recent rulings as well, but again, nothing major.
Also, a 21 year-old kid was arrested just last week who hacked into online accounts of investors and used their accounts....and their money....to manipulate the price of 17 penny stocks. One CEO, Hugo Cancio of Fuego Entertainment (FUGO.OB), was on my radio show last week, and described how his stock, which has only 9 million free-trading shares, was manipulated from over $1.40 a share to under .20 in a matter of weeks (the stock actually lost 90% of its value in three trading days), by this same 21 year-old. My main point on the show was that the SEC and the stock market regulators should take this as a sign that something is terribly wrong with the system. If a 21 year-old can do severe damage to 17 companies that easily, imagine what damage "the professional con artists" can, and are, doing.
This is beyond crisis stage, and I firmly believe that the destruction of our incubator companies by unregulated hedge funds, and the moving of massive amounts of our country's wealth offshore, has directly contributed to our country's recent downslide in our position as the world economic leader. Forget about outsourcing our jobs, we're outsourcing our wealth, and killing jobs even before they are created.
This is an issue that rests squarely with the SEC, DTC, and Wall Street, whose neglect and even collusion with hedge funds has resulted in record profits for brokers and obscene wealth for hedge fund managers....at the expense of our country's economic well-being. This is a house of cards, and it's teetering dangerously close to collapse.
Hope this helps....if I can do anything else, please feel free to call me. Thanks for all your help, without people like you, this would be a lost cause, and the damage to our economy would eventually become irreversible.
Did a single email dashed off at 3 in the morning, and the accompanying articles help shed a little light on the problems we face as investors, and America faces as a nation in crisis? It’s hard to say, but I do know this: more than one senator has said that the only way to force action from Congress is to speak out, to let them know that America wants our broken system fixed. Or better yet, dismantled altogether and reassembled in a way that safeguards against fraud, instead of one filled with built-in loopholes.
So here’s the plan: Every American who feels as if they have been wronged by a corrupt stock market, and indeed, every American who understands the financial drain on our country and the loss of jobs and productivity due to victimized companies, needs to raise their voices in unison. AMERICA NEEDS TO SPEAK OUT, AND SPEAK OUT NOW.
When Senator Chris Dodd returns to work next Monday, he needs to walk into an office that has been buried in emails and phone calls, all calling for one thing – a Senate Banking Committee investigation into fraud on Wall Street, and a thorough investigation into the SEC.
Two other more public events capped off the week that signaled the beginning of the end for the SEC. On Thursday, the day after meetings were held in Washington, two other senators renewed their own attacks on the SEC in a case involving SEC attorney Gary J. Aguirre, who was fired for attempting to question Wall Street kingpin John J. Mack.
Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) said that “The S.E.C. should have taken Mr. Aguirre’s allegations seriously. Instead, it circled the wagons and shot the whistle-blower — an all-too-familiar practice in Washington.” He also said that the SEC’s investigation into the case “was plagued with problems from its beginning to its abrupt conclusion. The termination of Mr. Aguirre by the S.E.C. was highly suspect given the timing and circumstances.”
Senator Arlen Spector (R-PA) saved his harshest words for the SEC.’s inspector general, Walter J. Stachnik. Spector said that in all his years in the Senate he could not recall “an I.G. who said less, did less and was thoroughly inadequate in the investigation.” An inquiry conducted by the Senate Judiciary and Finance Committees, and released on Thursday, said that “At best, the picture shows extraordinarily lax enforcement by the S.E.C. At worse, the picture is colored with overtones of a possible cover-up.”
Finally, members of Congress are beginning to say what advocates of stock market reform have known all along, that the SEC is as corrupt as the stock market that they are responsible for overseeing. While it is obvious that there are rank-and-file employees who are hardworking and honest, the corruption at the top of the SEC is way beyond criminal, it is treasonous.
AMERICA NEEDS TO SPEAK OUT, AND SPEAK OUT NOW!
To top off a week that will be remembered as one of the turning points in the battle to return honesty and integrity to our financial markets, Overstock.com filed a $3.5 billion lawsuit in California state court Friday against 10 of the largest U.S. securities firms, accusing them of participating in a “massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme” to defraud the company and its shareholders.
Overstock's suit names Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Bank of New York, Citigroup. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and UBS as defendants in the lawsuit.
Patrick Byrne has been under relentless attack from a number of financial media reporters, many of whom have ties to hedge funds and short sellers themselves, for joining forces with other stock market reform advocates in calling for a major overhaul of our financial system. That Congress has finally begun to awaken to the problem at the same time that Overstock’s lawsuit is filed is poetic justice for Byrne, and vindication for those who have battled against power, greed, and wealth in an effort to save our country from financial ruin.
As satisfying as this week has been to those of us who have spent years fighting a battle that at times seemed at times to be almost a hopeless cause, we cannot rest in our efforts. Now is the time to sound the alarm even louder than before, to spread the word across our country before it’s too late. Now is the time to let Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd know that this issue will not simply go away.
One last time, in unison: AMERICA NEEDS TO SPEAK OUT, AND SPEAK OUT NOW!
-------------------- "If you go the Extra Mile there will be no Traffic Jams".
St. Matthew Posts: 885 | From: Dallas, Texas | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Lets take a minute to remember and honor those who are shareholders of record on OCT 16th 2006. Especially when and if we have a vote. I don't understand the vote, because so far all it has taken is the major shareholders to decide on anything so far. Now we are gonna be asked??????????
Posts: 957 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Originally Posted by H2omd0 from HSM:...great find!
Want to see how Judge Clarence Cooper does his job. I think we can trust the judge.
The Securities and Exchange Commission ("Commission") announced today that on July 28, 2006, the Honorable Clarence Cooper, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, issued an order requiring Arnold E. Johns, Jr. of Atlanta, Georgia, to pay $372,578 of disgorgement, plus prejudgment interest of $399,209, for his 1996 illegal insider trading. The ruling came after an evidentiary hearing held July 17, 2006, and follows a remand from the Eleventh Circuit which directed that the district court conduct the evidentiary hearing.
Johns was president and a director of Vista 2000, Inc., a now defunct consumer products company formerly headquartered in Roswell, Georgia. Vista's common stock previously traded on the NASDAQ SmallCap Market until it became listed on the NASDAQ National Market on February 13, 1996. Subsequently, on May 31, 1996, Vista's stock was delisted.
Judge Cooper found that Johns unlawfully sold 47,500 shares of Vista 2000, Inc. stock over an 11-day period in February 1996 while he was in possession of material, nonpublic information regarding Vista 2000, Inc. The information Johns possessed was not publicly disclosed until April 15, 1996, after the close of the market. As a result, Johns has now been ordered to pay a total of $771,787.
Response posted by CDR Avanti:
good one, H2o, Good news= the crook got caught. Bad news= took 10 years + appeals. Salute
Response posted by St. Matthew:
I have some good news and I have some bad news...
-------------------- "If you go the Extra Mile there will be no Traffic Jams".
St. Matthew Posts: 885 | From: Dallas, Texas | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Anyone listen to the replay of the Oct. SPR show with Mike, Rufus, Sabra, and Tut? I haven't heard the whole thing yet, but it is very interesting to listen to. I did hear the part where Mike talked about his preferred shares and Rufus pointed out that he didn't have those anymore. Mike kind of argued, but then said they'd just talk about it later.
Posts: 1028 | From: Georgia | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
milliam, I remember that. Sounded like a greed thing would ensue immediately after the broadcast. What do you think about the record holders of date for Oct. 16th? It sounds to me like they are eligible, especially if they are on the nobo list, don't you think?
Posts: 957 | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
Financial Services Naked Short Victim Strikes Back Liz Moyer, 02.02.07, 6:35 PM ET
Overstock.com filed a $3.5 billion lawsuit in California state court Friday accusing 10 of the largest U.S. securities firms of participating in a "massive, illegal stock market manipulation scheme" to distort its stock.
The Salt Lake City online retailer, whose Chief Executive Patrick Byrne has been crusading against stock market trading abuses not just in Overstock shares but as a broad, pervasive market problem, said the banks' actions caused "dramatic distortions" in how Overstock shares were traded and lead to a dramatic decline in its price.
Overstock shares are down 77% in the past two years.
"These manipulative activities have caused tremendous damage to Overstock," Byrne said in a statement Friday. "I believe that this conduct is harming our company and our shareholders deeply."
Overstock's lawsuit says the amount of stock that was improperly shorted has exceeded the company's entire supply of outstanding shares. "It's about rigging the system," says Overstock's attorney, James Christian.
Overstock's suit names Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Bank of New York, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and UBS as defendants. None of the defendants had any immediate comment on the suit.
Byrne's self-described crusade against trading abuses over the last two years has brought a heap of criticism down on him, but regulators have acknowledged that there are loopholes that make the system ripe for abuse.
Going after the so-called prime brokers, the securities firms that provide stock lending and financing services to hedge funds, is another way to tackle the problem of naked short-selling, a manipulative trading tactic that can drive down share prices artificially and threaten the viability of small publicly traded companies.
Prime brokerage is one of the hottest businesses on Wall Street but little understood outside the world of finance. It essentially is the business of catering to hedge funds, acting as their trading counterparties, financing those trades, and loaning stock and other securities for funds to execute short-selling strategies.
According to Vodia Group, a New York firm that analyzes securities lending portfolios for traders at hedge funds and other asset managers, securities lending rakes in between $8 billion and $10 billion in annual revenues for Wall Street.
In regular short-selling, a trader borrows stock, sells it, and waits (or prays) for the price to drop before buying shares back to repay that loan and pocket the difference. There are rules for assuring that the shares have been properly borrowed, and everyone is supposed to abide them.
In naked short-selling, the trader sells the shares without properly borrowing the stock. When the stock isn't properly borrowed, the buyer at the other end of that short-sale doesn't get delivery of the shares within the mandated three-day window. The buyer also loses out on voting rights and tax-advantages until the short-seller closes out the position.
Now, fast working market makers are allowed to sell without borrowing to keep orderly markets. But naked short-selling as a strategy in and of itself is illegal. It is, however, highly tempting for both prime broker and hedge fund trader.
From the prime broker's perspective, fees can be made by lending out the same sought-after shares to multiple traders at the same time. So prime broker A has 100 shares of Company A and lends 100 shares to trader X, 100 shares to trader Y and 100 shares to trader Z. Obviously 200 of those loaned-out shares don't actually exist, and will result in a trade delivery failure.
From the trader's perspective, a naked short can be less costly, since they have to pay more to borrow hard-to-borrow shares that are usually the choice targets of short-sellers anyway.
Having all those excess shares in the market artificially reduces the price of a stock, Overstock contends in its lawsuit. Overstock has been a regular on a list of Nasdaq-listed stocks that have large and persistent failures-to-deliver since that list started being published in January 2005.
It's tough to say who is more at fault in naked short-selling, the hedge fund executing the short strategy without properly borrowing the shares, or the prime broker for either assisting or turning a blind eye to the practice.
In two suits filed last year in New York federal court, a small hedge fund and a small brokerage accused the same 10 banks named in Friday's Overstock suit of charging them for services they never received. In other words, the prime brokers supposedly took their fees for stock lending services, but never properly lent them shares for their legitimate shorting strategies, unbeknownst to them.
Last summer, 40 investors in the Kansas City real estate investment trust Novastar Financial filed suit in California court against the same prime brokers, saying they were responsible for artificially suppressing Novastar stock by skirting stock lending and clearing and settlement rules.
Byrne has spent the last two years pushing legislators, regulators, and anyone else who will listen to reform the system. The Securities and Exchange Commission is combing through comment letters on proposed amendments to short-selling rules that could close some loopholes, but efforts in state legislatures to clamp down on brokerages have largely failed.
Last year, sympathetic lawmakers in Overstock's home state of Utah shoveled a bill through the state legislature and got it signed into law after a special session in May. The new law would have forced brokerages to report trade delivery failures in shares of Utah companies to the state's securities director within 24-hours, or face paying a sort of fine to those issuers.
But the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, Wall Street's trade group in Washington, threatened a lawsuit in federal court and got the governor of Utah to capitulate on enforcing the law until June, supposedly to give the SEC time to reform the rules on a national level.
Several other bills in legislatures across the country have been stalled in the last few weeks by a similar threat of litigation by the industry group.
-------------------- "If you go the Extra Mile there will be no Traffic Jams".
St. Matthew Posts: 885 | From: Dallas, Texas | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I wonder if Rufus is going to be mad at Patrick Byrne for stealing some of his thunder ?
Posts: 1028 | From: Georgia | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I don't care who is "claiming" to be working with who. I think it is high time to see a lawyer in the mix who is actively looking to open the default.
Posts: 2717 | From: Eville,IN,USA | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
In my opinion RPH is not CEO of CSHD, but he has more right to the title than JA at this point. Until I see a court document that says "this person {Insert Name Here} is present as representative of Conversion Solutions Holding Corp". I am not buying anything that is being sold.
Now I might have missed something that happened this weekend, I have not gone back and played catch up yet. But jockeying for postition does nothing at this point until a lawyer enters a federal court for this company.
-------------------- Una Mas! Posts: 2717 | From: Eville,IN,USA | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Any word on JA being back from overseas? Didn't Rufas say that something would happen or be filed on or about the 5th? I haven't been keeping tabs on all of this...TIA!
-------------------- #1 Rule: Protect your capital! #2 Rule: Never fall for the BS on the boards! Posts: 8890 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
10, I believe you are thinking about the new SEC regulation that is supposed to go into effect today. He mentioned it in the last interview, sorry i dont have the link here at the office.
As for Arlitt.......well........thats a good question
Posts: 2308 | From: Michigan | Registered: Jun 2006
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posted
As far as I know, and I know nothing, No word from JA.
THe Feb 5th date was for the reform on the SEC reg but the SEC pushed it back to March of this year.
THe only thing Rufus has continually stated lately was to watch PACER and Nothing has appeared there yet.
OT: I posted a stock a couple weeks back for the board since we are stalled. GMSC it closed today at .002 up 100% from my buy at .001 but is still looking pretty strong. last year it ran over a penny twice. Not sure if it will do the same here but could easily hit .003 to .004 this week. I'll post a chart and let you all decide what to do.
As for me I'm just looking to make a little money while this soap opera continuees.
posted
So, Rufus has a few days to get us that 140 page proxy.....He said Feb 9th & Simon added 2 more weeks for him.....which put it at the 23rd.....I guess we will see............he keeps saying to watch Pacers.....anything there?
-------------------- ..just remember....Family is EVERYTHING!! Posts: 3944 | From: Rochester, NY | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
For the people looking for John, would it matter if he was back with a signed deal?......people will have a problem with him no matter what....so why look for him.....besides whoever gets to the court house with a lawyer wins, so Rufus has had over a week while John's been gone to get there....I wonder why he didn't take advantage of it? ......I hope someone/anyone gets to the court soon......
-------------------- ..just remember....Family is EVERYTHING!! Posts: 3944 | From: Rochester, NY | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by wallymac: As far as I know, and I know nothing, No word from JA.
THe Feb 5th date was for the reform on the SEC reg but the SEC pushed it back to March of this year.
THe only thing Rufus has continually stated lately was to watch PACER and Nothing has appeared there yet.
OT: I posted a stock a couple weeks back for the board since we are stalled. GMSC it closed today at .002 up 100% from my buy at .001 but is still looking pretty strong. last year it ran over a penny twice. Not sure if it will do the same here but could easily hit .003 to .004 this week. I'll post a chart and let you all decide what to do.
As for me I'm just looking to make a little money while this soap opera continuees.
Nice tip Wally, I remeber you posting that a couple of weeks ago,I didn't get in but wishing I would have. I'll take heed to your tips more seriously from now on. THANKS
Posts: 180 | From: Grants Pass , Or | Registered: Sep 2006
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