There's more to it than just a group of short sellers. What about the uptick rule being repealed in 2007, and mark to market accounting being implemented in 2007. It seems to me, there was a plan for this meltdown. These 2 rules were changed at the top of a huge bubble.
Before you take this video as the whole truth consider who is propagating it on the internet, it is from Judd Bagley. Overstock.com's director of media. The same guy who was blaming short selling for the crappy performance of overstock.com' stock. Some history below: http://www.sequence-inc.com/fraudfi...the-management-and-deception-at-overstockcom/ -Neo
Yeah, kinda of a coincidence how the rules changed at the top. Wonder who was behind those changes ? With the uptick in place, could the hedge funds circumvent the rule and still kill the bid ?
It says here it originated from someone at the University of Texas but has been modified for mass viewing? http://antisocialmedia.net/?p=165
I want to shoot the person who made that video. Yeah, it was not billions, hundreds of billions or maybe trillions of dollars in retarded contracts that Lehman&Bear engaged it was the evil shortsellers who brought them down. Naked short selling allowed people to make a quick buck on companies that were doomed anyway. I wonder why nobody tried to naked short sell wal mart?
The video makes a good case for stock price manipulation but you could make the same case about buyers. If the company was solid the buyers would step in at some point and buy everything offered. Nobody wanted the shares because they were worthless and that's the reality. I don't understand why some people have hard time understanding that most of the biggest financial companies are effectively bankrupt. Bankrupt = 0 share price, period! The only reason GS, MS, BAC, AIG and many others are still around is because the government is pouring money into them like there is no tomorrow. You take the public money away and they all follow LEH into the wood shed.
I got some interesting feedback from another forum about how this was done apparently to the airlines before and trailing 9/11. And about how the investigation into this Lehman Bros scandal has come to an an abrupt end and that we don't hear about it anymore. Which is quite strange. Any of this true? Also it looks like someone called this 3 yrs ago. http://www.newstatesman.com/200607310033
You have a couple of loose wires up there, pal. What happened to the rule of law? Oh, I forgot. Look around. There was no rule of law. And that's how we got here. However, I 'm impressed. If I put something like this up two years ago, I would have been harassed to no end. I am heartened to see thinking people post solid comments. It is unfortunate, as human beings, mostof us have to suffer personal loss before we realize an injustice has been done. Judd Bagley is not like that. He is one of those people who chips in because there is a wrong, and he has skills that can help combat that. As I said last year, I had bear puts. I detest the organization that was Bear. I worked for firms that cleared with Bear. There was a memo out there that said, referring to naked short selling, basically, "........we know what we're doing is wrong, and if we get caught, it's your fault." So they did deserve to go down, but by legitimate workings of a fair market. Not a printing press that churned out 50,000,000 shares, overwhelming any legit demand. As for stupid? Maybe. Crooked? No.
I think you are having a fit of stupidity yourself If you want reality, reality is every bank in the world is insolvent. Every bank has less capital then obligations to account holders. If not, then we didn't need the FDIC. Naked short selling will definately expose the insolvency of every bank in the world. That's the danger of naked short selling, contrary to normal short selling. Exacerbating the inherent flaw of banks leads to systemic crisis and ultimately depression, like happened in the thirties. People like you are just as worse as the pumpers like Cramer
Punitive short selling by huge specs on margin to push companies across their debt covenants and into collapse is/should be a crime. In theory, big buyers should emerge to capitalize on the price distortion, but with the size of the players today, buyers never really know how much powder the sellers have left, and may be leery of going against the flow. So this is someting I don't know: I think longs have to publically file when their holdings exceed 5% (at some point in time). maybe requiring sellers to report any short position exceeding 5% the minute they cross that threshold would add a little transparency in the market. Something along those lines may or may not already be in place.