Key to Dennis Bolze’s success? Fibonacci Trader Corporation. A sharp Dealbreaker made the connection.
Archive for January 2009
2008 numbers are in.
Ok, how could you not see this coming. Shameless self-promotion runs strong in these (alleged) frauds. This October 2008 profile has got to be the most surreal thing we have ever seen, including the revelation that fugitive trader Dennis Bolze had a friend “fake my $100 million lottery winnings.”
The origins of the White Shadow’s success? Read on:
Dennis, who grew up in Pennsylvania, attended Georgia Tech with plans of becoming an attorney. However, he quickly determined that law wasn’t for him, and took a summer job as a runner at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. One quiet morning on the floor, Dennis doodled. An executive scolded him, but Dennis replied, “In about 15 minutes, the market is going to go crazy; I’m just waiting.” Sure enough, the market exploded just as he had predicted. The next day the same executive came to him to ask how he’d foreseen the day’s events. Dennis, it turns out, had been studying the trades, reading trade materials, and creating charts to calculate fluctuations in the market. He had also been studying the work of W.D. Gann, a financial advisor/trader in the stock markets during the early 20th century. Made famous for forecasting the Great Crash of 1929 and subsequent depression, his methods are still widely used.
And we thought Marcus DB’s capture was going to slow things down around here.
A Giving Life [Cityview]
Earlier: January Is International Fugitive Month
I am both saddened and outraged to have to tell you that the SEC has brought a civil complaint today against Ramesh Chakrapani in our Corporate Advisory Services Group, charging him with passing on inside information three years ago about a pending transaction on which he worked as a 30 year old vice president.
We are all shocked by this alleged breach of the law and violation of our firm’s compliance policies and ethical standards. This employee has been suspended and we have told the authorities that they will have our firm’s full cooperation in their investigation into this matter.
This is the first time in the firm’s 24-year history that any employee of the firm has been accused of any infringement of securities laws.
Oops.
Steve Schwarzman on Blackstone Insider Trading Trouble: ‘I Am Personally Infuriated…’ [DealJournal]
Breaking News: CNBC reports that Bernie Madoff, due downtown this afternoon, has moved his car to the service entrance
By Bess Levin
And during the break, the Power Lunch gang narrated us through even more:
“He’s gotten off the couch. He’s walking toward the kitchen, no, no, the bathroom. He’s in the bathroom. It looks like, maybe, oh, nope, he’s not gonna shut the door. He’s unzipping his pants. He’s whipping it out. He’s not even cut! Fraud! Fraud! [compose themselves] He’s taking a leak [Kneale interjects that it appears as though Berns is dehydrated]. He’s zipping back up. He’s, whoa, he’s leaving the toilet seat up! Ruth’s gonna be pissed, they’ve talked about this before. He’s leaving the room. HE DIDN’T WASH! That’s a health code violation right there. This man can’t be trusted.”
Let’s see, there’s Marcus “DB” Schrenker, Jaffe (well, he claims he was sick so we assume that some federalle actually heard his voice on the phone and looked at the caller ID or something), and now Dennis Bolze, the Knoxville area trader who vanished in mid-December “after some of his investors failed to receive dividend payments and began asking questions.”
As the details get thicker, a different kind of escape emerges:
No distress call. No dramatic plane accident. Just sudden, silent absence. Well done! I bet he got a good 14 day head start.
Bolze and his wife, Kathleen, were widely known as supporters of charities and often hosted fundraising events in their 16,000-square-foot Gatlinburg mountaintop home. The house is now unoccupied, and, according to reports, the furniture has been removed. Kathleen Bolze is believed to be living in the area….
Ah HA! He left her behind! Someone who knows how to follow the rules! The plot thickens.
Says former FBI agent, now private investigator for the investors:
So they trusted him and they invested a small amount. They would just get a statement printed out on his letterhead showing the current status of their investment, about how it had been used, and the thing that concerned me the most in looking at it, how they invested for years on a day to day basis is, it very rarely had a loss….
Mmm-hmmmm.
The FBI and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission are investigating, apparently. Any bets on what they will find?
Would you have invested? Here’s the promotional material:
010709bolze2.pdf
010709bolze.pdf
Investors level accusations against missing trader [KnoxNews]
Investors may be mostly European [KnoxNews]
FBI investigating missing Sevier Co. stock trader [WATE.com]
Like he said yesterday and this morning and moment earlier, Charlie Gasparino believes Citi CEO Vikram Pandit is likely to be shown the door. According to Chaz, “the market is betting Vikram Pandit’s days are over,” but there are a couple other reasons we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss the news.
1. Litmus Tests. Though officials at the Big C have categorically denied the story, there’s an observable pattern here. CG told Mel Francis, “I got screamed at by Jimmy Cayne’s flack and Joe Gregory’s and then guess what happened a few weeks later?” So, though it’s not yet a science, Chaz gettin’ yelled at = someone’s gettin’ fired.
2. Past Performance and Crystal Balls. Do not discount track record. As Gasparino reminded us, “I’ve predicted a lot of these executive changes at the top.”
Our friends at LandlineTV have come up with a plan for Madoff investors to find healing.
The AP reports that the girlfriend of the hedge fund industry’s biggest M*A*S*H fan has run into some legal trubs. Debra Ryan, gal-pal of former Bayou fund manager Sam Israel, was arrested Friday and charged with attempting to deliver forbidden items to her man in prison. The “nature of the contraband” was not disclosed but you people know exactly what the illicit goods likely entailed. Being serious for a second, it might not have been an actual egret, but it definitely could have been man-on-bird porn (Backdoor Birds 9 is apparently Israel’s fave), which is prohibited. Of course, none of this would have been an issue if the narrow-minded fucksticks running the Westchester county jail– where Sammy was stationed at the time of the incident– allowed for interspecies conjugal visits but that’s not going to happen in our lifetimes. Israel is currently staying in a federal medical prison in Massachusetts after convincing a judge he was insane.
So what happens exactly when, in response to your withdrawal request, you get this:
…withdrawing partners that do not elect to revoke their withdrawal request will receive their proceeds primarily in kind. It is unlikely that any cash will be distributed.
Well, if you signed a subscription agreement that gave the hedge fund you were investing in the right to meet redemptions “in kind,” like many Golden Tree Asset Management investors did, you sit back and wait to receive your toxic debt (and perhaps argue about its valuation, since I doubt they sent you the good stuff).
Sez the Financial Times:
GoldenTree was down more than 30 per cent in 2008 and is facing demands from investors for about 25-30 per cent of their money, according to the person with direct knowledge of this. Historically, this person adds, GoldenTree tried to keep 80 per cent of its investments in easily tradable securities and 20 per cent in less liquid investments. But recently, as the markets lurched, that ratio flipped.
It’s all very funny really. That is, unless you are the one asking for redemptions.
GoldenTree fund invokes clause to pay investors in kind not cash [The Financial Times]
Cuts are supposedly going down at Lazard Asset Management circa now. No further details at the moment. We’ll let you know more as soon as Bruce gets in touch.
