Your friend civil_capitalism@hotmail.com thought you might be interested in this canada.com story:
"Shore gains greater control of diamond site"
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canada.com (http://www.canada.com)
If the US housing slowdown continues, two things are going to happen. First the US consumers will shrink back like never before and that will collapse Asian economies that depend on American consumers. But more importantly people in America have already started realizing no matter what the Government projects, they are getting poorer slowly but steadily.
The net effect is very serious for the global economy. First, the WalMarts of the world will suffer big time. China and India will face depression. Japan will be seriously hurt. Then there will be a forced showdown of closing the borders to free trade. An all out trade war of worst in nature will break out. The American businesses who thaught they control America, learnt a good lesson in the last election. The American democracy is alive and is actually prospering. The special interests now (whether Democrats or Republicans) have difficulty in brainwashing common people. People will demand restricted fair trade with all countries that plans to dump goods and services on America.
Housing starts in the U.S. tumbled 14.6 in October to the lowest level in more than six years. That prompted a warning signal from the International Monetary Fund Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato.
Europe’s and America’s trade gaps are worsening with China and Japan. If things do not improve in the UK,US and the Euro zone continues to slow down, the China and Japan both will be asked to come and manufacture in America and Europe. That will be the end of Asian prosperity for the time being. It will also mark the of offshore outsourcing as we know it.
STOCKGATE TODAY
An online newspaper reporting the issues of Securities Fraud
Follow the Money - To where?
Dave Patch
The Securities and Exchange Commission expects to be stepping up the enforcement cases against hedge funds shortly according to SEC Director of Enforcement Linda Thomsen. Thomsen divulged such interests at a securities conference held in
According to Thomsen, Regulators have learned to "follow the money and these days the money is in hedge funds, so the potential for abuse, the potential for securities law violations is there because there is so much money there."
While these comments could be considered a step in the right direction by the investing public, who have otherwise been highly critical of the SEC's commitment to hold accountable the highly connected Wall Street white-collar criminals, Thomsen's comments also left open the possibility that the SEC Enforcement Division is still missing the rest of the white-collar crime playing field.
Attending the conference in
But Merrill expanded on her concerns over hedge funds citing the possibility that prime brokerage, the member firms responsible for taking on the hedge fund order flows, could also be accountable if they failed to detect the illegal activities of the funds.
Who's on First?
Back in early 2004 the NASD passed a reform to short sale Rule 3370. The intention of the rule change was to place compliance responsibility of the non-member firm [unregistered firm] on the member firm [registered firm] in the execution of a short sale into the
In the case of an unregistered hedge fund, there are no laws that require the fund to maintain supervisory or compliance programs. The hedge funds have fought registration because they are against taking on the financial burdens of putting such protective measures in place. These funds are unregulated at this level and thus operate without audit by the securities regulatory operations. But as an unregistered member, the funds must execute trades through a member firm and that would be the prime brokerage.
With responsibility of all trades executed by a hedge fund befallen upon the prime brokerage firms compliance operations, illegal trades executed for or by a hedge fund place the accountability squarely at the doorstep of the prime broker. There is no "if" scenario in the thought process as Ms. Merrill would lead the public to believe. Enforcement "could" should be enforcement "will".
Thomsen says, "Follow the money".
Prime Brokers get the money, and lots and lots of it. A single hedge fund can generate hundreds of millions of dollars in commissions to the prime broker for trade executions throughout the year. A single hedge fund was cited as providing upwards of $200 million in trade commissions in a single year. With such significant funds to be made, prime brokers will consider to allow such illegal trading to slip through because of the commission they receive for executing that trade and how that impacts the bottom line.
Heck, the regulators have ignored this potential conflict because a growing bottom line for Wall Street means a more robust and growing
The role of the prime broker is to help hedge funds manage their trades with multiple firms and also provide lending, portfolio reporting and custodial services, among other things. For regulatory enforcement to dismiss this venue as a serious opportunity would be a crime in itself.
How much money is involved?
Revenue from prime brokerage operations totaled some $7.5 billion in 2005, according to estimates from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Most prime brokerage revenue comes from fees charged on stock loans and financing, with trading commissions making up a smaller portion. Those numbers will have increased in 2006.
Today, several hedge funds have filed lawsuits against several of the prime brokerages for charging a lending fee in a short sale transaction when there was no lending to be done. The short sale executed by the prime broker, on behalf of the hedge fund, resulted in a fail to deliver at the settlement date because the share to be lent by the prime broker to the purchaser never existed to settle the trade. The result of such fraud was that of allowing excessive dilution, and manipulation of the value of the security shorted as well as the profiting off a service not performed.
It was such dilution and manipulation in the marketplace, illustrated by an increasing level of failed trades at settlement date, that prompted the NASD to review and ultimately change Rule 3370 calling the lapse a loophole in existing laws.
None of this should come as a surprise or news to Thomsen, the SEC, or the self-regulatory agencies that police the major markets. The concerns of prime brokerage abuses and the concerns of the prime brokerage conflicts between compliance and revenue generation has been a standing topic of water cooler conversation since the prime brokerage business was created in the early 1980's.
So who is on first? I don't know but the SEC and SRO's had better stop playing around trying to decide who may be accountable and start understanding the laws and the dynamics of the markets to start taking names of the white-collar criminals. Wall Street business practices have been left unattended for far too long and the delays in attention have only created a more powerful union of criminals that is becoming increasingly harder to find guilty of anything.
Follow the Money; start by following the $27 Billion in bonuses this year handed out on Wall Street and maybe you can find a few that cut corners to secure these obnoxious levels of compensation.
For more on this issue please visit the Host site at www.investigatethesec.com .
Copyright 2006
Go to Article from The New York Times »
November 7, 2006, 6:32 am
With days like Monday, when a barrage of multibillion-dollar corporate deals were announced, it is hardly surprising that investment bankers are doing well. But just how well? Consider this: According to one consulting firm, bankers are likely to see their end-of-year bonuses jump 20 percent to 25 percent this year from 2005. For managing directors at top investment banks, the increases are expected to be even higher.
Alan Johnson Associates, an executive compensation consultant, estimates that the average managing director at a top-tier bank will get an annual bonus of $1.7 million, up from $1.2 million a year ago. That is a jump of nearly 42 percent. While that may sound like a lot, The New York Times' Jenny Anderson reports that, for these bankers, the increase will effectively put them "back where they started before the technology bubble burst and their pay tumbled nearly 50 percent."
Bloomberg News examines this year's bonus prospects a different way. It reports that the five largest investment banks — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – are set to reward staff with a record bonus pool worth $36 billion.
In London, top performers can also expect an overall bonus increase of at least 25 percent from last year, although the pool is still significantly smaller. The city's investment bankers, traders and hedge fund managers will share $16.7 billion in bonuses this year, according to The Center for Economics and Business Research.
On Wall Street, it will again be the traders, who make investment bets for their firms, and those who operate in the complex world of structured products and derivatives, who take home the biggest checks this year, with top-end estimates in the range of $40 million to $50 million, according to The New York Times.
"Traders are making more than bankers and that will probably continue for one more year," Alan Johnson, the managing director of Alan Johnson Associates, told the Times. "Then it will be a horse race."
Bonuses aside, MarketWatch points out that investment banks in the United States outperformed their European counterparts in this earnings season. After strong results from investment houses in the United States, hopes had been high for a similar showing in Europe, but some disappointing data has left investors questioning why European firms weren't able to match their American peers.
On average, UBS and Deutsche Bank reported investment-banking revenues a couple of percentage points below year-ago figures, compared with the average 6 percent rise at peers in the United States with the same reporting period.
MarketWatch says that the disparity may be a result of different attitudes toward risk, exposure to rampant commodities markets, and might also be linked to Europe's long summer break in August.
| Crime on Wall Street - It's a way of life « Thread Started on Jun 20, 2006, 10:57pm » | ||
| Goldman Sachs Added as Defendant in Fannie Mae Suits "Complaints allege that Goldman, Sachs & Co. violated U.S. securities laws while allegedly arranging Fannie Mae-sponsored bond deals, the brokerage said in its quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The deals relate to real estate mortgage investment conduits, which are bonds collateralized with mortgage-backed securities, MarketWatch reported." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1160188954&page=1 NEW YORK (Reuters) - The New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday said it fined Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) $500,000 and censured the firm for failing to report short interest positions in hundreds of securities for as long as 20 years. http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1163000912&page=1#1163000912 November 8, 2006 NYSE Regulation, the regulatory body of the NYSE Group Inc., hit four firms and 12 individuals with disciplinary actions today. http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1163038833&page=1#1163038833 "Ten of Nation's Top Investment Firms Settle Enforcement Actions Involving Conflicts of Interest Between Research and Investment Banking Historic Settlement Requires Payments of Penalties of $487.5 Million, Disgorgement of $387.5 Million, Payments of $432.5 Million to Fund Independent Research, and Payments of $80 Million to Fund Investor Education and Mandates Sweeping Structural Reforms The ten firms against which enforcement actions are being announced today are: Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc. (Bear Stearns) Credit Suisse First Boston LLC (CSFB) Goldman, Sachs & Co. (Goldman)" Lehman Brothers Inc. (Lehman) J.P. Morgan Securities Inc. (J.P. Morgan) Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Incorporated (Merrill Lynch) Morgan Stanley & Co. Incorporated (Morgan Stanley) Citigroup Global Markets Inc. f/k/a Salomon Smith Barney Inc. (SSB) UBS Warburg LLC (UBS) U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. (Piper Jaffray) http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1139169328 Prudential to Settle Rapid Trade Dispute for US $600 million, which will allow the company to avoid criminal prosecution. http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1156633359&page=1#1156647762 MORGAN STANLEY FINED OVER TRADE REPORTING. Morgan Stanley was fined $500,000 by regulators who claimed the world's second-largest securities firm inaccurately reported short sales of stocks listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The Manhattan-based firm's Morgan Stanley DW Inc. brokerage unit inadequately supervised its trade-reporting system, according to a disciplinary order released yesterday by the NYSE's regulatory division. Last month, the same unit was fined more than $1million by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for allegedly failing to supervise a broker who defrauded customers. In September, Morgan Stanley agreed to pay the NASD $2.9million for "widespread" violations. http://tinyurl.com/y67erp Bank of America Announces Mutual Funds Agreements CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Bank of America today announced agreements in principle with the New York Attorney General and the Securities and Exchange Commission over matters related to improper late day trading and market timing of mutual funds. Under the agreements, Bank of America agrees to pay $250 million in total disgorgement and restitution. http://cmkxgroup.proboards88.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1163196766&page=1#1163196766 Morgan Stanley fined $2.9 million for "extensive violations" dealing with reporting obligations, short sales and a slew of other NASD, Securities and Exchange Commission and other rules. http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1157583913&page=1 "A lawsuit filed in Suffolk Superior Court in 2004 alleged that a hedge fund operated by the Boston firm had been executing naked short sales through an account at Goldman Sachs, targeting American Business Financial Services stock." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1138722905 "And even then, let's say that they continue to sell naked, helping out their hedge fund clients – you know, a big house like UBS or Lehman or Bear or Goldman just sells and sells, day after day." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1137782520 "Early last year, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) agreed to pay $40 million each to settle Securities and Exchange Commission allegations about laddering. JPMorgan previously had paid $25 million to settle an SEC case arising out of the same investigation, although the agency didn't accuse JPMorgan of laddering or other market manipulation. " http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1145929566 WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- NASD has imposed a $200,000 fine against EKN Financial Services Inc. of Woodbury, NY -- along with CEO Anthony Ottimo, President Thomas Giugliano, Head Trader William Baker and Financial and Operations Principal Michael Benvenuto -- for engaging in improper short selling in connection with three unregistered securities offerings, commonly referred to as PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity) deals, and other violations. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061102/dcth029.html?.v=75&printer=1 "a scheme that implicates hedge funds, Smith Barney, Goldman Sachs and a aptly named company called "Flip Firm", who helped to cover the trail of the naked short sellers" http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1139876932 "Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have a hammerlock on providing hedge fund services after spending more than $200 million a year on trading systems, offering more stock for short sales and courting former employees who left to start their own hedge funds, according to a survey by Tremont Capital Management Inc., an industry consulting firm in Rye, New York." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1142527283 "Someone explain to me how Goldman and whomever else signed off on the DD for REFCO when it IPOed last August missed the CEO's hidden $500 million in debt and now this. Something is broken here folks, and broken bad.." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1142421037 "Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley and 10 other banks had outlined in a Dec. 16 letter to the Fed that they would halve the number of unconfirmed transactions by May, compared with the amount outstanding in September." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1140140818 "The Post states that regulators will be looking for the trading and customer ledgers of Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1140122248 "All 20 members of DTCC's board, including Jill M. Considine, Chair and CEO, and Donald F. Donahue, COO, DTCC; Jonathan E. Beyman, CEO, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH); Randolph L. Cowen, Global Head of Technology and Operations, Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS); Dianne Schueneman, Senior VP, Merrill Lynch & Co. (NYSE: MER), New York; Douglas Shulman, President, NASD, Inc., Washington, DC; and Timothy J. Theriault, President, The Northern Trust Co. (NASDAQ: NTRS); and Catherine R. Kinney, President and Co-Chief Operating Officer, New York Stock Exchange, had been asked by Shichtman to "reign in" Thompson and other high executives of DTCC following two documented instances of media tampering involving FinancialWire." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1140013365 "Utah and Connecticut regulators' first line of attack will be to get Wall Street firms' trading records via the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, which tracks and settles all stock trades. Regulators will be looking for the trading and customer ledgers of Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, which all have large and highly lucrative clearance operations" http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1140047107 "Goldman said on Dec. 16 that it paid Chief Executive Officer Henry Paulson about $37 million in shares and stock options." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1137020115 "This year's bonus total for Wall Street was over $21 Billion with Goldman Sachs handing out an average of $500,000 to their employees. Abelow worked for Goldman Sachs." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1140954602 "The original Stockholders of the Federal Reserve Banks in 1913 were the Rockefeller's, JP Morgan, Rothschild's, Lazard Freres, Schoellkopf, Kuhn-Loeb, Warburgs, Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs." http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1141000934 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More from www.sanitycheck.com December 3, 2002 Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MWD), the Salomon Smith Barney unit of Citigroup, the Deutsche Bank Securities unit of Deutsche Bank and the U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray unit of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB ) each agreed to pay $1.65 million in fines for allegedly violating e-mail record-keeping requirements. The fines were assessed to each company by the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange and the NASD. In accepting the penalties, the broker-dealers neither admit nor deny the allegations. December 20, 2002 Late last night regulators and investment banks agreed to a series of fines and sanctions in response to Wall Street's mistreatment of individual investors through bastardized, conflicted research. The total tab in fines is $1 billion. Citigroup (NYSE: C), parent of Salomon Smith Barney, took the largest hit, at $325 million, but a baker's dozen of other Wall Street firms got fines, including Credit Suisse First Boston (NYSE: CSR) at $150 million, and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MWD) at $50 million apiece. On top of these fines the companies will be required to fund a trust as seed capital for an independent stock-analysis entity. April 4, 2003 Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, a unit of Goldman Sachs, and four employees agreed to be censured and fined $435,000 for alleged trading misconduct on the floor of the exchange between 1999 and 2002. Although Spear's Amex floor operations were sold off in late 2002, it remains the largest NYSE specialist outfit. April 28, 2003 Goldman Sachs was found to have "issued research reports that were not based on principles of fair dealing and good faith .. contained exaggerated or unwarranted claims.. and/or contained opinions for which there were no reasonable bases." The firm was fined $110 million dollars, for a total of $119.3 million dollars in fines in six months. September 4, 2003 In a settlement with the SEC, Goldman Sachs & Co., a unit of Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS ), agreed to pay $4.3 million in restitution and a $5 million penalty related to improper trading in U.S. Treasury securities and futures. Without admitting or denying the findings, Goldman consented to the SEC's order. The restitution and penalty relate to improper trading in 30-year bonds on Oct. 31, 2001, that the SEC alleges was caused by embargoed information received by then senior economist John Youngdahl. The SEC has filed a civil complaint against Youngdahl and Peter Davis, a Washington, D.C.-based consultant, who allegedly supplied Youngdahl with a tip that the U.S. Treasury was about to announce the suspension of the 30-year bond. Youngdahl has also been charged with seven counts of criminal activity by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Davis, also charged by the U.S. attorney, has already pleaded guilty. A lawyer for Youngdahl says that his client intends to fight the charges. (See "Goldman Scuffs Its Shoes.") March 15, 2004 Goldman Sachs& Cowas ("Goldman")censured and fined $15,000 for the following conduct. On 21 occasions during the fourth quarter 2002, and on 23 occasions during the first and second quarter of 2003, Goldman failed to expose customer orders it represented as agent for 30 seconds prior to entering offsetting and interacting firm proprietary orders. (ISE Rule 717(d)) Goldman failed to maintain satisfactory written procedures to assure compliance with proper facilitation of customer orders. (ISE Rule 401) The fine was composed of $10,000 for violations of 717(d) and $5,000 for the written supervisory procedures violation. July 1, 2004 Goldman Sachs Group agreed to pay $2 million to settle an administrative proceeding with the SEC. According to the SEC, sales traders at Goldman violated the waiting period for marketing an IPO before a registration became effective. Additionally, the SEC alleged that a Goldman executive spoke to the media about an IPO by PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) before an initial registration was filed. In the settlement, Goldman neither admitted nor denied the findings. February 17, 2005 Following several months of negotiations, the parent companies of the five largest specialists at the New York Stock Exchange revealed nearly $240 million in total fines and restitution related to alleged NYSE rule violations. In the agreements in principle, still being finalized by the SEC and NYSE, the companies claim they will neither admit nor deny findings that allege the specialists failed to maintain a fair or orderly market. The Spear, Leeds & Kellogg unit of Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS ) will pay a total of $45.5 million. January 26, 2005 Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have agreed to pay a combined $80m (£43m) to settle allegations that they manipulated markets to ensure big first day gains in flotations during the stock market boom. The Wall Street banks were accused of guaranteeing clients bigger allocations in initial public offerings if they agreed to buy more of the shares when they started trading. The scheme is known on Wall Street as "laddering". March 22, 2005 The NASD fined a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unit $1 million for hiding initial public offering allocations after being pressured by clients demanding anonymity. The regulator said Spear, Leeds & Kellogg LP, which in January was renamed Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing LP, used its system to circumvent the Depository Trust Corp.'s IPO Tracking System, which lets underwriters monitor the quick trading, or "flipping," of new issues. DTC provides clearance and settlement services to the securities industry. The NASD fined a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. unit $1 million for hiding initial public offering allocations after being pressured by clients demanding anonymity. The regulator said Spear, Leeds & Kellogg LP, which in January was renamed Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing LP, used its system to circumvent the Depository Trust Corp.'s IPO Tracking System, which lets underwriters monitor the quick trading, or "flipping," of new issues. DTC provides clearance and settlement services to the securities industry. April 1, 2005 In Indonesia, Goldman has had an ongoing problem largely ignored by the U.S. media. According to the Hong Kong Standard, on 3-4: "Goldman Sachs Group colluded with Indonesia's state oil company, Pertamina, to ensure Frontline buys two supertankers for as much as US$56 million (HK$436.8 million) below the market price in July 2004, the country's anti-monopoly agency said." Goldman was fined $15.76 million by Indonesia, a levy that came in close proximity to another fine, in which Goldman was fined $1 million by the NASD in a case that involved withholding IPO information from the market. June 9, 2005 NASD today announced that it has ordered three firms - Morgan Stanley & Co, J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc., and Goldman, Sachs & Co. - to pay more than $2.9 million following sales of restricted securities in violation of lock-up agreements as required by Each of the firms, or entities or individuals affiliated with the firms, acquired the securities from issuers in private placements prior to each issuer's IPO. Each of the firms subsequently served as an underwriter of the issuer's IPO. Under NASD rules, certain of the private placement securities were deemed underwriting compensation and were restricted from sale for a period of one year from the date of the IPO. In addition, NASD rules provided that if a member firm agreed to restrict the sale of securities for an additional period of time - one or two years - additional discounts would be provided to the value assigned to the shares for purposes of determining underwriting compensation.NASD rules. August, 2005 The NASD censured and fined 20 firms a total of $1.65 million for late and inaccurate reporting of municipal bond trades. Goldman Sachs was fined $140,000. February 20, 2006 Securities regulators are moving to crack down on an online brokerage for allegedly permitting a controversial Wall Street trading practice called "naked shorting.'' Online brokerage TradeStation (TRAD:Nasdaq) recently disclosed that regulators at the NASD have notified the firm that some of its customers may have engaged in improper short sales. The Florida-based brokerage said in a filing that regulators could fine the firm for nearly 200 infractions that took place in 2004. TradeStation says regulators have found 172 improper short trades made during a two-month period in 2004. The trades allegedly were improper because they were made without an "affirmative determination" that TradeStation could either "receive delivery of the security on behalf of the customer'' or "borrow the security on behalf of the customer.'' TradeStation says the short sales being examined by regulators were "authorized and arranged'' by Bear Stearns (BSC), the big Wall Street firm that processes and executes trades for the smaller brokerage. A Bear Stearns spokesman declined to comment. Apr 12, 2006 NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- NYSE Regulation Inc. on Wednesday said it fined Spear Leeds Kellogg Specialists LLC $200,000 for improperly contacting companies considering listing on the New York Stock Exchange. The alleged contact was made between June 2003 and March 2004, regulators said. The NYSE also faulted Spear Leeds, a unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., for failing to have proper systems in place to meet its disclosure obligations. Copyright ©2006 Bob O'Brien http://thesanitycheck.com/BobsSanityCheckBlog/tabid/56/EntryID/311/Default.aspx ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hartford Fincl Units To Pay $55M In SEC « Thread Started on Nov 8, 2006, 1:47pm » http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1163011652&page=1#1163011652 http://cmkxunitedforum.proboards70.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1162933910 | ||
| Janice and here goon squad are slaming people who are in trouble and sharing personal information on civil boards like proboards70. This truly is a sick and evil person. She wrote
Hmm, Janice didn't Kramer get served on TV? Above the law you all are not. Your time is short so live it up! I wonder if my marriage will survive? « Thread Started on Nov 16, 2006, 10:50pm » | ||
| This has been a tough few years. At this point I consider my investment in CMKX all but lost. It was a very large investment. I told my wife that the situation with CMKX was unique, and that justice would prevail. We don't speak much about it anymore. After all I assured her that there are good companies out there to invest in. So I have slowly been saving up to reenter the market, assuring my wife all the way. So back in I go. Trying to due my DD as a wise investor. This month alone, I lost a lot of money in CSHD, and the last of my three years of savings again today in SLJB. If it is not the naked shorters, it is CEO's outright deception to steal from the investing public. I mean If you can't invest in a company like SLJB that has been in business for 25 years, what help is there with any company. You would think that with CEO's going to prison for years, that these directors of these companies would show a little restraint in their scams. Apparently not. Well, I really should not be writing this on this board, I should be telling it to my wife. However, I don't have the courage to tell her that I have lost our life savings again. | ||
The world's oil supply is expanding. It is possible to meet increase in global demand comfortably with new reserves and new technologies. For example, the newly discovered oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico that may contain 3-15 billion barrels will relieve production demands.
:: A slowdown has begun in global demand. High oil prices and slowdown in growth rates have brought about a decline in demand. This year, the demand of both Europe and the United States won't increase significantly. The increase in demand in China, which was at 900,000 barrels a day in 2004, will recede to 500,000 this year.
:: It will be easier for producers to meet demands. The increase in global oil production is 2,7 million barrels a day. After Saudis start oil production in Khursaniye in 2007, this figure will be 4.5 million barrels daily.
:: If the elections in Nigeria decrease the tension among the groups around the Niger River, a total of 500,000 barrels will also be marketed daily. Even if the other countries restrict production by preferring quality Niger oil, the daily supply will be around five million barrels.
:: Companies do not invest in any projects as long as they don't see a profit of $40 per barrel, despite high prices in the past two years. If companies believe that prices would remain high, they would allocate most of their profits for research and drilling work. Shareholders of ExxonMobil and BP will be paid $40 billion this year.
:: The OPEC members' restriction on oil production will not stop the fall in prices, either. They may make a decision to restrict the quotas, but there will always be countries that don't cooperate.. For example, countries which are short on cash, such as Venezuela, may not accept a decrease in their oil production in order to keep their incomes at a certain level and sustain their social spending. Libya and Algeria are still producing oil over their quotas. Russia, which is the biggest non-OPEC oil producer in the world, determines its own agenda. When Russia objected to a Saudi demand to restrict oil production in 2001, OPEC countries reached an agreement with Russia and the price of oil fell to $21 due to the high amount of supplies.
Star Uranium drills diamonds on Carolyn
2006-10-31 19:11 ET - News Release
Also News Release (C-GBN) Golden Band Resources Inc
Mr. Rick Walker reports
Star Uranium Corp. has signed a letter of intent with Golden Band Resources Inc. whereby the company is selling its 50-per-cent interest in three mineral claims in the Dickens Lake area of Northern Saskatchewan to Golden Band. The company will receive $20,000 and 150,000 shares of Golden Band as payment and will retain a 1-per-cent net smelter return royalty in the properties. Golden Band will have the right to reduce the royalty to 0.5 per cent by making a cash payment of $250,000 to Star Uranium.
The company also reports that Ralph Newson of Saskatoon, PEng, PGeo, and the qualified person on Star's Smeaton, Sask., diamond property, has received results from the Saskatchewan Research Council lab on samples submitted from two drill holes on the Carolyn kimberlite. Analysis of approximately 210.9 kilograms of split NQ core from holes C4 and C5 yielded six diamonds. The other half of the split core has been retained in a secure building.
Analysis was by total dissolution using caustic fusion, carried out by the Saskatchewan Research Council, which is certified under ISO 17025.
The fundamentals and technical action are suggesting that gold is on track to launch 'wave two' of its bull market before the year is over. Few people see this coming, but few people truly understand the fundamentals behind these markets. In fact, there is a lot of confusing rhetoric flying about. And it all has to do with the current account deficit.
An account deficit is the difference between a nation’s savings and expenditures. If the current account deficit is positive it means that a portion of a nation’s savings is being invested abroad; if it is negative it means that a portion of domestic investment is being financed by the savings of foreigners.
When a country runs large budget and trade deficit, the deficit is funded by foreign money coming into the country. For instance if a country imports more goods than it exports it will pay for those imports with loans coming from other countries.
The United States has the largest budget, trade, and current account deficits in its history. Historically other nation’s have experienced some sort of currency crisis once their current account deficit passes 5% of GDP. The United States surpassed this level almost a year ago.
In effect, we're depending on foreign money to sustain our own economic growth.
Bloated current account deficits lead to a crisis. Once they get too large, investors lose faith that the country will ever be able to completely finance it. In order to protect themselves, the investors begin to sell assets in the currency, an act which snowballs and eventually causes interest rates to spike and the economy of the indebted country to collapse.
Worries About the US Dollar
Many commentators believe that the current account deficit of the United States has approached unsustainable levels and will eventually lead to a serious financial problem. Legendary investor Warren Buffett announced last year that he took positions against the United States dollar, which he described as being "massive," in the expectation that we are headed to such a crisis.
"Our country’s net worth so to speak, is now being transferred abroad at an alarming rate," he said. "In effect," he warned, "our country has been behaving like an extraordinary rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more than we produce – that’s the trade deficit – we have day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increase the mortgage on what we still own."
The head of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Robert McTeer, shares this position. In a speech on October 7, he said that there were only two ways to address the unsustainable current account deficit. Either US incomes would have to shrink so that consumers will buy less foreign imports or else the dollar would have to weaken. "Over time, there is only one direction for the dollar to go – lower," he said.
However, some people do not think the deficit is a problem. Permabull FOX News financial commentator Tobin Smith says that the deficit is actually a sign of the strength for the US economy and is so huge because the US economy is the biggest economy in the world.
"We run a current account deficit as a country because we consume so many more goods than other countries. Remember, we have 5% of world’s population, 33% of the world’s GDP, and more than 50% of the corporate and personal income earned. The market cap of our stock and bond markets are 75% of the entire world," Smith writes.
"In the context of our exaggerated rate of consumption vis-Ã -vis the other countries in the world, there is $88 trillion of corporate and household wealth vs. less than $20 trillion for the rest of the world," Smith continues.
According to Smith, "running a trade imbalance of less than 5% of our GDP is actually LOW on a percentage adjusted basis."
"There is no precedent for a trade balance that is unsustainable for a country that produces and consumes such a disproportionate amount of the world’s goods and owns such a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth," Smith concludes.
I have two responses to this. First, the trade imbalance is not low; it is taking a toll on our economy and endangering our national security. It is stripping our manufacturing base and turning the economy into a credit card, debt-driven, consumption machine, which will ultimately collapse like a house of cards. The US trade deficit is growing and is now over $600 billion. Some 2.6 million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the past 4 years and replaced with lower paying "service" jobs.
It is false to say that we have had a "jobless recovery" in the past few years as Presidential candidate John Kerry has charged. We have created millions in slave-wage jobs in China thanks to a $150 billion dollar a year trade deficit with China. What we buy from China here in the United States amounts to 40% of their exports and 10% of their entire GDP.
Secondly, there are precedents for world leading economies to have crisis-level deficits. Great Britain had one in the 1920’s which just happened to lead to the collapse of the gold standard and helped spur the Great Depression. In the United States, we reached a current account deficit right under 5% of GDP in the 1970’s thanks to a decade of 'guns and butter' deficit spending, which led to a crisis of foreigners selling the dollar and draining the United States of its gold reserve. To escape a full-blown currency crisis, Richard Nixon abandoned the Bretton Woods system and canceled our commitments to redeem dollars for gold, an act that changed the global monetary system and started the imbalances that have grown since.
People who claim that there is no precedent for today's situation simply don't know history. And history shows that a current account deficit that grows like ours has been growing will result in some sort of crisis.
Smith also argues that our current account deficit is a good thing, because it represents foreign money investing in the United States. "The countries that produce capital surpluses typically have such low return on investment performance that their capital owners WANT to invest their surplus capital where they feel it will be best rewarded vs. the risk they are willing to take with that capital," he writes.
With this reasoning Smith is saying that our current account deficit is so big, because the Unite States offers the best potential of risk to reward in the whole world. This fuzzy logic turns the fundamental reasons for the current account and trade deficits upside down.
The Real Story
In reality, the deficits are making the United States a less attractive place for investment. That is why the dollar is dropping and one of the reasons that the stock market is under pressure.
Just a few days ago the US Treasury reported that the net capital inflows from the rest of the world into the United States fell for the 6th month in a row. Private from abroad fell to $34.7 billion in August and from $72.9 billion in July. Asian central banks made up for the shortfall. If they hadn’t, the current account deficit would have exploded.
The NY Times quoted Ashraf Laidi, a currency analyst at MG Financial Group as saying, "foreign central banks saved the dollar from disaster. The stability of the bond market is at the mercy of Asian purchases of US Treasuries."
The current account deficit has grown so large the foreign investment coming into the United States is no longer creating economic growth. Although the United States is taking in 80% of the world’s surplus savings it is all being used to finance the deficits.
According to Stephen Roach, the head economist of Morgan Stanley, the deficits are growing so large that by the end of the year America’s indebtedness to other countries will reach 28% of GDP.
That would bring the US indebtedness to a level of 300% of exports. Argentina and Brazil were at 400% right before they collapsed in the 1990’s.
In short, the current account deficit will soon reach the point at which it will become a problem that even bullish prognosticators like Tobin Smith won’t be able to deny.
During August, foreign investors were net sellers of US equities. It was the intervention by foreign central banks that prevented a run on the dollar. We may be starting to see the first signs of a brewing crisis. If the current trend continues then the US financial markets will eventually come under intense pressure, the dollar will continue to drop, and investors from all over the world will flock into gold.
Ann DavisWall Street JournalNov. 14, 2006 11:19 AM
Enron is dead. Long live Enron.Five years after the Texas energy-trading giant collapsed, the traders behind some of Enron Corp.'s brashest efforts to carve out new markets are pushing further into those frontiers.Enron alumni have joined hedge funds and trading operations capitalizing on fast-growing commodity markets that the company once dominated or helped develop, from its stronghold of natural-gas and power trading to experimental futures markets in pollution-emission credits and weather contracts. A few Enron refugees have even joined industrial or consumer-goods firms, where they negotiate contracts to reduce the risks of volatile energy, food and raw-materials prices. The growth of commodity markets popularized by Enron, and the ability of its veterans to raise money in budding areas, is to some a validation of at least part of the company's model: trading commodities of all kinds."In the general population, there is an Enron stigma. In the trading community, there is Enron mystique," says Vince Kaminski, a former quantitative expert at Enron. After Enron's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing five years ago next month, the sought-after risk guru moved to hedge-fund giant Citadel Group, and then to Citigroup Inc.'s commodities desk. He now teaches prospective energy traders at Rice University.Before imploding amid accounting-fraud accusations, Enron plowed big sums and talent into markets criticized after its fall as quixotic or a distraction from its core business of transporting and selling energy. It even had investigated whether it could launch movie-box-office futures as a way for studios to manage the risks of a big flop, a former Enron executive who panned the idea recalls.While most markets besides gas and power weren't big moneymakers for Enron, ex-traders today are piggybacking on the company's early investments in everything from pulp-and-paper products to coal trading. And they are finding their background a selling point, much as the collapse and bankruptcy of junk-bond pioneer Drexel Burnham Lambert launched dozens of careers elsewhere in the 1990s."Employers look at having worked at Enron as a risk-management experience, and they think people might have learned from the Enron mistake and those traders might have become better," says Michael Karp, chief executive of Options Group, an executive-search firm that works for many banks and hedge funds. The traders' renaissance comes as some Enron executives from other areas of the company have forfeited assets and begun serving prison terms. Even Enron trading veterans whose reputations were tarnished by criminal and civil probes are making inroads.Former high-ranking executive Lou Pai, who oversaw Enron's efforts to push into a number of new trading markets, has put some of his Enron-related earnings to work as a silent backer of a Houston-area firm prominent in brokering pollution-emission credits, Element Markets LLC, court documents show.Pai left Enron before its troubles came to light, selling hundreds of millions of dollars of stock to meet a divorce settlement, according to interviews and legal records and proceedings. He still faces civil litigation and potential regulatory scrutiny for his role in Enron's financial management, lawyers following Enron matters say.His affiliation with Element Markets emerged after he attempted this spring to buy a portfolio of emissions credits from an Enron unit operating in bankruptcy protection. Officials of the Enron estate overseeing the sale alleged that Mr. Pai failed to disclose his identity as a former company insider in an auction. They said selling to a former insider posed a conflict and sold to another buyer.Pai nonetheless landed the assets; he repurchased them from the winning bidder without Enron's knowledge, according to a consultant advising the Enron estate. Now Pai is working to break into trading carbon-dioxide emissions, several Enron veterans familiar with his plans say. Pai didn't return calls to his home or office.David Delainey, a former high-ranking trading executive, pleaded guilty to insider trading in connection with Enron's collapse. Nevertheless, Louis Dreyfus Energy Services, an arm of privately owned global commodity merchant Louis Dreyfus, hired him to oversee a trading operation in Calgary, Alberta. Delainey was sentenced last month by a federal judge in Houston to 2 1/2 years in prison. He didn't respond to interview requests before his sentencing.Citigroup snapped up Stuart Staley, a successful coal trader at Enron. Staley, 40 years old, now runs the gas- and power-trading operations of Citigroup from Houston, where traders he sought to hire already resided or wanted to return. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. are building energy-trading operations in Houston, among other cities, with former Enron traders. Barclays PLC's Barclays Capital unit and Deutsche Bank AG employ former high-level Enron traders.Constellation Energy Group Inc., a large energy merchant, is ramping up its trading of coal and emissions credits in the U.S. and Europe with former Enron traders. Tyson Foods Inc., the meat and poultry producer, hired an Enron trader to run its commodity-trading and risk-management operations.Nowhere is the Enron "mystique" stronger than with 32-year-old trader John Arnold, who founded hedge fund Centaurus Energy LP in Houston with $8 million a few years ago and employs other Enron alumni. The firm now has an estimated $3 billion in assets and would be larger if Mr. Arnold hadn't returned many investors' cash and winnings to keep his fund from growing unwieldy, investors and traders say.Primarily a natural-gas trader, Arnold did well last month in volatile markets even as rival Brian Hunter at Amaranth Advisors LLC suffered multibillion-dollar trading losses, commodities players familiar with Centaurus's performance say.Investors are rushing to back other Enron veterans. A Chicago-based fund of hedge funds has invested in a firm called Top Shelf Capital in Calgary, operated by senior former Enron trader John Lavorato and an Enron colleague, Jonathan McKay. They declined interview requests.A former colleague of Hunter at now-liquidating Amaranth, Harry Arora, also was an Enron trader. Arora founded a new hedge fund, ARCIM Advisors LLC, this summer while Amaranth was still doing well.Also hanging out a shingle: Jeff Shankman, the former president and chief operating officer of Enron's second-largest trading division. He is launching his energy-focused hedge fund, Trident Asset Management, this week.Enron "created a fantastic alumni network," says Mr. Shankman, 39. "The thing I regret most at Enron is having to defend my tenure there," when "most of us were hardworking, decent people who did our best for a company we believed in."Mark Tawney and another Enron alumnus, Bill Windle, were involved in Enron's early efforts to structure weather instruments for energy companies and other firms with payouts based on precipitation and temperature that affect their businesses. They moved on to insurance giant Swiss Re to build up its weather desk and then left to form a weather-derivatives-trading hedge fund in Houston last year. After finding that the capital-intensive transactions worked best with a large financial institution as a credit partner, they returned investors' money and have just launched a weather-risk-management desk in Houston for a unit of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda reinsurer.Some days, it almost feels like they are still trading for Enron: The Tawney-Windle group bought 10 of Enron's actual trading desks from a used-furniture vendor.
Ann DavisWall Street JournalNov. 14, 2006 11:19 AM
Enron is dead. Long live Enron.Five years after the Texas energy-trading giant collapsed, the traders behind some of Enron Corp.'s brashest efforts to carve out new markets are pushing further into those frontiers.Enron alumni have joined hedge funds and trading operations capitalizing on fast-growing commodity markets that the company once dominated or helped develop, from its stronghold of natural-gas and power trading to experimental futures markets in pollution-emission credits and weather contracts. A few Enron refugees have even joined industrial or consumer-goods firms, where they negotiate contracts to reduce the risks of volatile energy, food and raw-materials prices. The growth of commodity markets popularized by Enron, and the ability of its veterans to raise money in budding areas, is to some a validation of at least part of the company's model: trading commodities of all kinds."In the general population, there is an Enron stigma. In the trading community, there is Enron mystique," says Vince Kaminski, a former quantitative expert at Enron. After Enron's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing five years ago next month, the sought-after risk guru moved to hedge-fund giant Citadel Group, and then to Citigroup Inc.'s commodities desk. He now teaches prospective energy traders at Rice University.Before imploding amid accounting-fraud accusations, Enron plowed big sums and talent into markets criticized after its fall as quixotic or a distraction from its core business of transporting and selling energy. It even had investigated whether it could launch movie-box-office futures as a way for studios to manage the risks of a big flop, a former Enron executive who panned the idea recalls.While most markets besides gas and power weren't big moneymakers for Enron, ex-traders today are piggybacking on the company's early investments in everything from pulp-and-paper products to coal trading. And they are finding their background a selling point, much as the collapse and bankruptcy of junk-bond pioneer Drexel Burnham Lambert launched dozens of careers elsewhere in the 1990s."Employers look at having worked at Enron as a risk-management experience, and they think people might have learned from the Enron mistake and those traders might have become better," says Michael Karp, chief executive of Options Group, an executive-search firm that works for many banks and hedge funds. The traders' renaissance comes as some Enron executives from other areas of the company have forfeited assets and begun serving prison terms. Even Enron trading veterans whose reputations were tarnished by criminal and civil probes are making inroads.Former high-ranking executive Lou Pai, who oversaw Enron's efforts to push into a number of new trading markets, has put some of his Enron-related earnings to work as a silent backer of a Houston-area firm prominent in brokering pollution-emission credits, Element Markets LLC, court documents show.Pai left Enron before its troubles came to light, selling hundreds of millions of dollars of stock to meet a divorce settlement, according to interviews and legal records and proceedings. He still faces civil litigation and potential regulatory scrutiny for his role in Enron's financial management, lawyers following Enron matters say.His affiliation with Element Markets emerged after he attempted this spring to buy a portfolio of emissions credits from an Enron unit operating in bankruptcy protection. Officials of the Enron estate overseeing the sale alleged that Mr. Pai failed to disclose his identity as a former company insider in an auction. They said selling to a former insider posed a conflict and sold to another buyer.Pai nonetheless landed the assets; he repurchased them from the winning bidder without Enron's knowledge, according to a consultant advising the Enron estate. Now Pai is working to break into trading carbon-dioxide emissions, several Enron veterans familiar with his plans say. Pai didn't return calls to his home or office.David Delainey, a former high-ranking trading executive, pleaded guilty to insider trading in connection with Enron's collapse. Nevertheless, Louis Dreyfus Energy Services, an arm of privately owned global commodity merchant Louis Dreyfus, hired him to oversee a trading operation in Calgary, Alberta. Delainey was sentenced last month by a federal judge in Houston to 2 1/2 years in prison. He didn't respond to interview requests before his sentencing.Citigroup snapped up Stuart Staley, a successful coal trader at Enron. Staley, 40 years old, now runs the gas- and power-trading operations of Citigroup from Houston, where traders he sought to hire already resided or wanted to return. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos. are building energy-trading operations in Houston, among other cities, with former Enron traders. Barclays PLC's Barclays Capital unit and Deutsche Bank AG employ former high-level Enron traders.Constellation Energy Group Inc., a large energy merchant, is ramping up its trading of coal and emissions credits in the U.S. and Europe with former Enron traders. Tyson Foods Inc., the meat and poultry producer, hired an Enron trader to run its commodity-trading and risk-management operations.Nowhere is the Enron "mystique" stronger than with 32-year-old trader John Arnold, who founded hedge fund Centaurus Energy LP in Houston with $8 million a few years ago and employs other Enron alumni. The firm now has an estimated $3 billion in assets and would be larger if Mr. Arnold hadn't returned many investors' cash and winnings to keep his fund from growing unwieldy, investors and traders say.Primarily a natural-gas trader, Arnold did well last month in volatile markets even as rival Brian Hunter at Amaranth Advisors LLC suffered multibillion-dollar trading losses, commodities players familiar with Centaurus's performance say.Investors are rushing to back other Enron veterans. A Chicago-based fund of hedge funds has invested in a firm called Top Shelf Capital in Calgary, operated by senior former Enron trader John Lavorato and an Enron colleague, Jonathan McKay. They declined interview requests.A former colleague of Hunter at now-liquidating Amaranth, Harry Arora, also was an Enron trader. Arora founded a new hedge fund, ARCIM Advisors LLC, this summer while Amaranth was still doing well.Also hanging out a shingle: Jeff Shankman, the former president and chief operating officer of Enron's second-largest trading division. He is launching his energy-focused hedge fund, Trident Asset Management, this week.Enron "created a fantastic alumni network," says Mr. Shankman, 39. "The thing I regret most at Enron is having to defend my tenure there," when "most of us were hardworking, decent people who did our best for a company we believed in."Mark Tawney and another Enron alumnus, Bill Windle, were involved in Enron's early efforts to structure weather instruments for energy companies and other firms with payouts based on precipitation and temperature that affect their businesses. They moved on to insurance giant Swiss Re to build up its weather desk and then left to form a weather-derivatives-trading hedge fund in Houston last year. After finding that the capital-intensive transactions worked best with a large financial institution as a credit partner, they returned investors' money and have just launched a weather-risk-management desk in Houston for a unit of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda reinsurer.Some days, it almost feels like they are still trading for Enron: The Tawney-Windle group bought 10 of Enron's actual trading desks from a used-furniture vendor.
Dollar falls on talk of problems at hedge
Blog Posts & ArticlesBy Wanfeng ZhouLast Update: 10:57 AM ET Nov 17, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The dollar fell against the euro and yen in mid-morning trade Friday on market talk that a major hedge fund is in trouble."Rumors of a major U.S. hedge fund collapse appear to be behind the dollar's latest dip," said Brian Dolan, director of research at Forex.com, a division of Gain Capital. Dolan said the speculation centers on Citadel Investment Group, which was not yet available for comment. The euro was last up 0.3% at $1.2833, while the dollar fell 0.5% at 117.60 yen.
