Can someone confirm for me that the London Stock Exchange doesn't have a price test for short selling and doesn't require a locate for intra-day shorting? If that's true, I think more volume will shift from the U.S. exchanges if the SEC brings back an even harsher price test than the uptick rule or forces pre-borrowing. Thanks in advance.
check out today's action in CVM - head and neck cancer biotech.. Deal with TEVA, and they pounded it to get it down on news. That's the MO. any good news must be perceived as negative. Those that ask, 'show me a good company.........' I sorta think 'head and neck cancer' is pretty serious, and that leads me to believe that any company attempting a cure, and getting a deal with TEVA oughta have a clean shot. But, I guess that's just me. no position.
it was a marketing agreement for sales in turkey and Israel, not a big deal. This company is a press release company, always with crap news on the wires, such as immu, liv, pact, vsgn, and there was 1 other i forget that just did a reverse split 6 months ago and now its a $15 stock.
Well, the company doesn't see it your way. THey thought they could earn their way out of this, and I hear now they understand what they're up against.
Read the last paragraph. The guy is trying to save your sorry asses, and they are trying to drive him out of business for the almighty buck. Sick, man. Just sick. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8229 Boone Boulevard, Suite 802 COMPANY CONTACT: Vienna, VA 22182. USA Gavin de Windt Telephone (703) 506-9460 CEL-SCI Corporation www.cel-sci.com (703) 506-9460 CEL-SCI CORPORATION RELEASES LETTER TO SHAREHOLDERS VIENNA, VA, AUGUST 20, 2008 â The following letter is being released by CEL-SCI CORPORATION (AMEX: CVM) to its shareholders: Dear Fellow Shareholders, I am writing to you in response to the many phone calls and e-mails that we received within the last 24 hours. You were universally enthused by the licensing deal for our Phase III cancer drug Multikine with one of the most successful and respected pharmaceutical companies in the world. You were excited that they are putting their reputation on the line by actually running and funding the costs of a part of our Phase III clinical trial. You were enthused with the initial increase in the share price, yet no one could understand why our shares, after trading 30 times the normal volume, took such a steep fall in the afternoon. You asked, âHow is it possible that the stock can be down after such a good announcement?â As the Companyâs largest shareholder, and somebody who has purchased shares in the open market regularly, I am as puzzled and disappointed as you. While we may never know what happened, I have been told by many that the stock traded as if it could have been under an attack from short sellers. Short sellers play a role in the stock market, correcting imbalances in supply and demand that occur periodically. However, it appears that trading in our shares may have involved more than opportunistic short sellers, but may actually have involved manipulation, which is illegal. Short sellers make money by betting that a stock will decline in price. They sell shares they do not own (yes that is legal as long as you follow certain rules which we think were not followed in this case) and hope to repurchase them at a lower price. Short sellers may look for companies that have been doing better than the averages and/or their peers on the theory that everyone should be knocked down equally. Our share price has been doing much better than the averages and/or our peers in what has been a very challenging market for micro-cap stocks. We believe that in all likelihood the short seller has been shorting CEL-SCI stock for a while. The selling of our stock increased in the last month, but more importantly, the seller was not acting like a shareholder, but like someone who trades deceptively to create the impression of a decreasing share price. Remember, the short seller makes money from a declining share price. For example, one day we traded about 85,000 shares throughout the day and in the last minute another 80,000 shares were sold. That may have been done to drive the share price down and is euphemistically known as âpainting the tapeâ, an illegal activity which makes the stock look weak and unattractive. Yesterdayâs announcement of the licensing deal brought in a large amount of buying to our stock and initially increased the share price substantially on huge volume. Having been taken by surprise by this great news, the short seller may have been faced with taking a large loss (having to buy back at higher prices the shares that he sold earlier) or selling again a very large number of shares in order to drive down the share price and stop the shareâs upward momentum. It appears that he may have opted for shorting many more shares. And again, in the last few minutes of the dayâs trading, large amounts of stock were sold depressing our share price. The goal of the short seller may have been to scare investors out of their stock at lower prices so that the short seller can cover (buy the shares back) at a profit (a lower price). So what can you do about this? Short sellers can benefit from creating panic among the shareholders and getting them to sell their shares cheaply. Therefore CEL-SCI shareholders should be aware of the game that is being played with their Companyâs shares and not be intimidated. We accept that short selling is a legal activity, but only when conducted according to the rules. WE BELIEVE THAT SHORT SELLERS IN OUR CASE MAY NOT HAVE FOLLOWED THE RULES AND THAT IS WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP. WE NEED YOU TO CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPERSON AND/OR SENATOR AS EXPLAINED AT THE END OF THE LETTER. Short selling CEL-SCI stock is allowed ONLY if you can borrow an equivalent amount of CEL-SCI stock. We have checked with brokers and it is very difficult to borrow CEL-SCI shares. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the massive short sales that have hurt the CEL-SCI share price are legal short sales which have been transacted with a corresponding number of shares borrowed. Most likely these sales were conducted in violation of the short sale rules. These sales were most likely conducted to keep the share price from gaining upward momentum since an increase in the share price would hurt the short seller. If we are correct, we are the victim of vicious and illegal manipulation. The only way to prove this malfeasance, or disprove it, is to get the regulators to subpoena the trading records of the last few weeks. Only they can find out whether short sellers may have followed the rules. That is where you can be of great help. Twice in the last month we have contacted the SEC and other regulatory bodies and have asked them to investigate. Now we are asking you to contact your local Congressman and/or Senator and request their help in getting the regulators to focus on our issue. Short sellers must abide by the rules. CEL-SCI was created to help people. Now CEL-SCI needs your help. In attacking CEL-SCI, they are attacking not just your money but also the hope of cancer patients. This affects almost every family. Our Multikine is a late stage cancer drug that appears to be non-toxic and showed significant increases in survival in the Phase II studies. Hence, by jeopardizing the Company, short sellers may be destroying the dreams of many people seeking a novel and non-toxic cancer treatment. I have dedicated 20 years to the development of this drug. We are about to enter the end stage and we are starting to find acceptance even among the big pharmaceutical companies, and I am not going to let these people push us around. I and the management and scientific team at CEL-SCI remain steadfast in our commitment to bring this promising drug to market. Thank you for your help, Geert Kersten Chief Executive Officer
Stock has been under attack for years. Fails are grandfathered, and you can't see them, like thousands of other companies destoyed before the SEC came up with SHO. Many stocks now that are pennies or that trade for nothing were destroyed pretty much before 2005. The NASD , SEC, NYSE had planned to clean this up, but they have always wanted these pennies to disappear. I was told this by the regulator of a major State. the reasoning is simple. There are multiples of the float that are naked, and the STreet needs these stocks to disappear. One that runs will kill them in their weakened state. It is a dilemma for them. I was polled the other day on whether or not we should let the pennies die as part of the comprimise. I think you can guess what I said, and the reply was affirmative. We all feel that way. No quarter. None. They did it. They clean it up. We aren't Henry Paulson.
you got any proof to this? hearsay is great but this is the first if heard of something like this. i only see 800k shares short on yahoo finance. they are upset there stock is not up becuase they have a marketing agreement ( in turkey) with teva? conspiracy theories are great especally when the SEC and paulson are involved, but dont think the SEC is trying to get rid of stock when they get below a $1. if thats the case id reverse split.
Reverse split is death. More borrowing power, they come in harder. Every stock I've every seen that reversed split ended up at the same price with a multiple of the stock outstanding. I don't deal iln hearsay. believe it or not. Do you think they write this stuff down? Take a look at the Lehman news today. How many people said Bear was a lousy company and just failed. Then why do the Hedgies of the world need to spread rumors. There can be no doubt, after the WSJ article, they were spreading rumors to destroy financials. But Fuld told you that in March.
So, doing your scans, get a couple prospects, read the filings, check the short interest, etc. Why bother? This is the Industry itself saying things are out of control: On May 5th of this year, in Phoenix, AZ, SIFMA held its 35th Annual Operations Conference. Of course, the Deep Capture team was present, particularly for a panel entitled "Reg SHO and Other Considerations for Short Selling." The goal of the panel was to highlight areas where Reg SHO is not being complied with on the level of the broker-dealer. The participants were: Anand K. Ramtahal, VP, FINRA Robert F. Maione, SVP, Director of Brokerage Operations, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC Jonathan E. Breckenridge, VP, Securities Division Compliance, Goldman Sachs Wendy Sylvester, Director, Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. Based on audits of stock loan desks conducted by FINRA, Anand Ramthal said: "There are times when we found that orders have been mismarked so someone doesnât necessarily have a locate, entered a long sale, the trade goes through...In certain instances where you need to identify particular customers who are apparently executing short sales in significant volume by marking sales as long, it goes back, at the end, to the mismarking to get around the short sale and the locate requirements. Those are some of the highlights of what weâre seeing in the long failure...What weâre doing in the field is that weâre specifically focusing on brokersâ policies and procedures to identify sales that are marked long where customers may fail on such long sales. Again, you have to build a system in place. You just canât let the long sales go through, which is a potential mismarking of the order, a violation of Regulation SHO, a violation of the order marking requirements, a violation of the locate requirement, just because they marked an order long." Each of the participants seemed to agree that stock lending is a huge mess, and Reg SHO is not being complied with.