Shorting will help terrorists--no shorts

There have been reports about suspicious shorting activities in Tokyo right before the terrorists attack. No shorting folks. Shorting will only help finance their terrorists' activities.

Stockoptionist

 

I've been posting also about what a market does under news like this.

Here is another link
http://www.oxfordclub.com/PDFs/srx_report.pdf

and my post here (which is the 2nd one)

http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=2200


and I'll cut and paste this again.


Start of Korean War June 26, 1950 we dropped -4.6% and over the next 4 days another -2.2%

Suez Canel Crisis Oct 31, 1956 We dropped -1.4% and the next 4 days rose 2.4% so it ended positive

Khrushchev in U. S. Sept 14th 1959 dropped -1.9% but rose within 4 days 2% so another positive

Arms Blockade in Cuba Oct 23rd 1962 dropped -1.9% and rose in the next 4 days 3.8% another positive

Kennedy Assassination Nov 22, 1963 -2.9% and then rose 5.7% over the next 4 days. another positive overall

The majority of times we tend to go up afterwards.

rtharp

 

09/14/2001 - Updated 09:49 AM ET

Japan checking securities trade for bin Laden link

TOKYO (Reuters) — Japan's securities watchdog said Friday it is investigating trading around the time of this week's terror attacks in the United States to see if any transactions were linked to Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.

A Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission official confirmed the probe into whether there were dubious trades on the Tokyo and Osaka stock exchanges and whether these were linked to bin Laden, whom U.S. officials say is a prime suspect in the attacks.

A report from London in the Sankei Shimbun newspaper said U.S. and British intelligence agencies are investigating whether there were links between bin Laden and some trades in securities futures in the United States and Europe before and after the attacks.

Such transactions could have reaped huge profits for people knowing in advance of the attacks and speculating on a resulting fall in share prices.

The United States has named bin Laden, now in exile in Afghanistan, as a prime suspect the attacks on New York and Washington on Tuesday.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/2001-09-14-dubious-trade-probe.htm

 

FBI probes short-selling, report says

Bin Laden associates may have profited from terror attacks

By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT

Sept. 15 — The Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported Saturday that associates of Islamic fanatic Osama bin Laden might have used short-selling to make a profit on Tuesday’s terror bombing. The newspaper said the FBI is looking into possible short-selling of the stocks of reinsurance companies in the four trading days before the terrorist attacks on the United States on Tuesday. Short-selling can produce huge profits when a stock plummets because of bad news.


REINSURANCE FIRMS ASSUME risk by providing backup insurance for insurance companies.


The stocks of the three reinsurance companies — AXA in France, Munich Re in Germany and Swiss Re in Switzerland — dropped 13 percent to 15 percent in the week before the attack.
Analysts suggested at the time that the drops were anomalous — unexplained — since the reinsurance business was healthy and premium payments were on the way up.
In fact, before the terrorist attacks, the Financial Times on Tuesday published a positive report on the industry.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/629380.asp?0dm=C16MN

 

There is nothing wrong with shorting. Short term trading is different from investing. Anyway I don't think shorting will be a good idea, the market is going to gap down big. Whatever you do as an individual it is not going to affect the market, it will do what it wants to do.

 

Enough of this 'no shorting' crap. If you wonna help, just donate some money.

If you long, then why do you exit your long position? Is it because you believe the price will drop? So if is a moral thing to dump an "over-priced" POS to somebody else?

Get a clue and get real.

 

dozu888 and Kicking
Being a market maker shorting the market Monday is very different than being an individual trader. A market marker's job is to provide liquidity whereas no such obligation is required of the individual trader. A market maker is not encouraging people to short or to go or sell long. His job is to make the market and then hopefully make money off the exchanges between sellers and buyers. However, the individual trader who goes into the market frequently has a well-thought plan to trade this or that stock in this or that sector. And that's the difference. Knowing that you'd profit off, say, the insurance and the airline sectors, from this human tragedy is I think very questionable. That's the reason why I think it's not right to short Monday.
In any case, I don't want to get into emotional bickering here. If you think you can live with your decisions to go short, you should go ahead. For myself, I can't live with that in my good conscience.


stockoptionist

 

dozu888,
By the way, I did donate to help the NYC firefighter's families. Please use good well-reasoned arguments, and stop attacking me as a person. If you can't give me good arguments other than just attacking other people, then you have no right to post here.

stockoptionist

 

You are the one who needs to get a clue and get real. What kind of moral compass do you have ? Even infamous short sellers have taken the high road and have chosen not to profit from this tragedy. Shorting is fine under normal circumstances - but profiting from a stock decline due to instability in the market following a terrorist attack is unacceptable in my book. But hey - short to your heart's content - Osama may even have some stock tips for you.
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/629468_asp.htm

Investors urge stock buying spree

Net grassroots move looking for ‘billion share move to upside’

By Brock N. Meeks
MSNBC

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — Stock-related chat rooms and Web sites, long the haunt of dubious stock tipsters and market analysis, have spontaneously turned into enclaves of patriotism in the wake of Tuesday’s terrorist acts. “NO SELLING MONDAY! SHOW THE WORLD!” blares one such message. “LONG USA!!” intones another. Call it the “Patriot Rally.”


SMALL INVESTORS ARE posting thousands of comments and stuffing e-mail boxes with messages urging everyone to buy and hold at least 100 shares of their favorite company.
“Help America get back on its feet and memorialize those who died: Buy stock when the market reopens and hold it. If everyone bought just 100 shares we could make America’s stock market soar,” says one such message.
“If every one of us, along with millions of other Americans get in there and buy 100 shares of your favorite stock, we can reach the goal of getting a billion shares on the plus side at the ringing of the closing bell on Monday,” says another with the exhortation: “Pass this along to all your friends and family!”
Even some infamous short sellers are saying they will step back from trying to profit from a market that could buckle Monday.
“I’m sure I could make a lot of money if the world panicked,” Anthony Elgindy, the flamboyant principle of Pacific Equity Investigations told the Dow Jones News Service. “But I’m not convinced that’s a business philosophy I want to employ.”

About 35 percent of American investors believe the market will “go down a lot” Monday, according to a Harris Interactive Poll of 4,600 adults taken the day after the terrorist strike. However, despite their gloomy outlook for the markets, only 1 percent of those in the survey said they were considering selling.
“My Grandmother bought war bonds to help my Grandfather when he was fighting the Nazi’s, in WWII,” wrote “Inforthelongrun” in a stock touting chat room. “And I’ll be buying 100 percent homegrown U$A companies on Monday!”

MARKET FOUNDATION LAID
Whether or not an actual “Patriot Rally” takes hold, whether investors’ resolve to throw cash into a nose-diving market actually materializes, remains to be seen. However, Wall Street and federal regulators have already bent the rules in these extraordinary times to help blunt a market free fall.
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this week that they are relaxing a rule that regulates how and when companies can repurchase their own shares. By law the SEC is allowed to grant such relief for up to 10 days. The relief waiver came as a result of regulators looking for ways to help the markets stabilize the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crash.
SEC utilizes emergency powers
The SEC said it would set the amount of shares each company can buy, set by a formula that correlates to its average daily trading volume.
Cisco has already announced it plans to use up to $3 billion it has socked way in cash to help keep its share price afloat, if need be.
“Investors should be assured that U.S. markets will function effectively and fairly, and that market and investor protections are squarely in place,” the SEC said in a statement.
And Saturday the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq Stock Market and the American Stock Exchange jointly announced that tests of their respective market making capabilities proved successful.
“Our systems are all go,” said Richard Grasso, chairman and CEO of the NYSE at a news conference Saturday. Grasso also said that the connectivity among brokerage firms passed with flying colors and all markets were expected to kick into trading gear at 9:30 a.m. EST on Monday.

IN THE TRENCHES WITH HISTORY
History is a powerful predictor. And it is the history of markets in uncertain, even climatic times that should calm investors’ nerves, according to the 114-year old trading house of A.G. Edwards.
“Our nation has classically rallied around the flag when tragedy hits,” A.G. Edwards said in a detailed research note to investors Thursday. “We look for the same to occur” in the aftermath of recent terrorist acts, the note says.
In 1993, when a bomb crumbled the basement of the World Trade Center, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped a mere 0.59 percent on the first day of trading, the note says. The Dow experienced a bull run that lasted several weeks and a 13.7 percent return over the next 12 months.

However, the St. Louis-based firm does caution that a shaken consumer confidence level will be a “major setback” to a market already slouching toward recession. In having to factor that flagging confidence into its market outlook, the firm said it would be revising downwards its projections for the third and fourth quarters of this year. The extent of that downgrade will depend on information the firm expects to gather next week.
“We believe investors in a few days will start to think with a cool head and realize that the long-term outlook for our nation has not been made less positive by a terrorist attack,” the A.G. Edwards note says.

 

wirelessbull,
Thanks for your links and your informative posts. I really wish everyone would treat each other with decency in this board even when they disagreed. One of the main reasons I've come to this board is that I got sick and tired of all the name-calling and four-letter words in other discussion boards. Unfortunately, some people never learn to treat others with respect.

stockoptionist.