Comments on: Something Is Rotten in the State of Denmark

By: 940

940 — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 23:08:08 +0000

ͳeʡ

By: 373

373 — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 18:18:52 +0000

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:26:00 +0000

The entire article is a waste of space. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Discover & Co is now trading at just under $14, despite one of the strongest two day rallies the financials sector has ever seen, despite short-sales bans and other molly-coddling. It’s not relevant. MS owned a lot of crap, and then moved into a business area (commercial banking) in which it has no idea how to execute and no edge; and that is why it’s price has fallen.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:43:06 +0000

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:54:30 +0000

Actually, I think the materiality of one $800 million account to MS is not that different than one burger to McD’s.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:42:11 +0000

23/15
Materiality can be shown where the information “might have been considered important by the reasonable investor” and would have “a significant propensity to affect” investors. Mills v. Auto-Lite, 396 US 375.
I think the pulling of an $800M account certainly falls within this definition of material, whereas a single customer dissatisfied with a MCD burger does not.
I think the real question w/r/t insider trading is whether the HF owed any fiduciary duty to MS in that it had insider information that could materially affect the price of MS.

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:25:43 +0000

If it was so clear to MS that the evil short sellers were distorting the stock price – why did they not take advantage of the mis-pricing and used their stock buy-back program to load up on MS?
And why did nobody else take advantage of the mispricing if it was so obvious?
Where is Warren when we need him?

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:08:17 +0000

15 In general, insider trading happens when you are in possession of material non-public info. Which is not the case in the scenario that you outline (i.e. your knowledge that MS is about to loose $800 million of HF assets is not a material non-public event).

By: Anal_yst

Anal_yst — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 16:04:16 +0000

@ CY(21)
It might if your family constitutes a measurable % of the Firm’s customer base (etc).

By: cy

cy — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:33:50 +0000

15-
If I walk into a McDonald’s one day, get lunch, decide it’s disgusting, vow never to eat it again, and then go home and short the stock, does that constitute an insider trading violation?

By: NotTheSecretary

NotTheSecretary — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:33:08 +0000

@14 — I was merely referencing the statements in the article as to trading intent, wasn’t commenting on their validity or endorsing any message of the article as a whole. My point was just that the article lacked perspective. In arguing for caging shorts, those advocating new regulatory controls bear the burden of persuasion and the facts fail them.
No hatred for MS, they just have the same crappy balance sheet as everyone on the Street now. Lots more pain to come.

By: NotTheSecretary

NotTheSecretary — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:20:57 +0000

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:18:31 +0000

@10
Hamlet ref.
-first db post

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:11:33 +0000

Can I see the same chart from 9/8 when the stock price was at 43.27 through 9/17?

By: guest

guest — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:58:57 +0000

All I wish for Christmas is…a solvent bank.