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Since we did two of these when the markets were in a tailspin last week, we thought it only fair run an early Call the Close contest when all indications point to a big triple-digit gain.
We’ll see if those fat fingers and high-frequency trading systems have the same impact on the way up. Dow futures were up as much as 400 early this morning.
Ready, Go!
Fat finger or not, the Nasdaq is in an official correction, down 10 percent from its high earlier this year. CNBC has the nanobox going and the Dow is off 133 points. With a half hour left in the session, it’s time to call the close. Have at it.
A small business lender once targeted by David Einhorn agreed today to settle fraud charges by the Justice Department for $26.3 million. The settlement, from Ciena Capital (once part of Allied Capital Corp.,) also resolves a whistleblower lawsuit by Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital.
Greenlight, and co-plaintiff James Brickman, will receive $4.3 million as part of the settlement. The feds charged Ciena with defrauding the Small Business Administration when they sought payments on federally-backed loans they made and serviced. The loans, which eventually defaulted, violated SBA rules and underwriting standards. Read more »
In addition to putting up a fancy new website, Raj Rajaratnam and his lawyers filed a motion today to suppress the government’s wiretap evidence.
(Bonus: Check out the glamour shots of Raj)
In a 75-page brief, lawyers for Raj laid out their argument that FBI Special Agent B.J. Kang and the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Manhattan intentionally misled the court when they sought authorization to secretly listen in on Raj’s cell phone.
Among several examples, the lawyers argue Rajaratnam only discussed publicly-available information on phone calls with Roomy Khan, a confidential witness in the case, as opposed to any material insider info. Read more »
European lawmakers are inching closer to passing a range of regulations that put hedge funds and private equity firms under tighter government control and subject them to much greater scrutiny.
The moves come as the EU is also attempting to prevent European investors from placing their cash with hedge funds and others located in offshore tax havens. Read more »
Amid protestors holding signs that read “Stop Hiding the Money” and “Transparency Now” the Rev. Jesse Jackson has stepped to the mic at the Goldman shareholder meeting in lower Manhattan.
The Reverend asks GS to put more consumers and labor leaders on the board. From the WSJ, which is live-blogging the event. Read more »
Thanks a lot Europe. Dow nosedives 550 points, S&P down almost 5 percent.
Procter & Gamble went from a modest 3 percent decline to a 25 percent drop in a matter of seconds. Most likely a trading glitch, but still someone probably made some serious dough. Goldman dropped about 5 percent before regaining some ground.
Update: CNBC Reports a Citigroup trader was responsible for a mistaken “fat finger” trade that caused “million” to turn into “billion.” Citi told CNBC it has no evidence of such a trade.
Financial stocks and tech getting killed. Where will it end? Predict the close. Ready go.
Jes Staley, head of JPMorgan’s investment bank and possible successor to Jamie Dimon, at the Bloomberg Markets Global Hedge Fund and Investor Summit in New York yesterday. Read more »
Echoing some other talking heads out there, Wall Street Journal columnist David Weidner called today for Lloyd Blankfein to step aside so Goldman can put its damaged reputation behind it.
With Warren Buffett and the Goldman board firmly in Lloyd’s camp, we’re skeptical that he’ll actually be forced to step down, especially if Goldman’s earnings continue to outperform. If the firm’s shares keep sliding, however, other Goldman shareholders may start getting restive.
Weidner points out that the departure of Ken Lewis helped Bank of America put its troubles in the past. Read more »
Brooksley Born, former head of the CFTC and now a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, finally had her chance to stick it to Chris Cox.
Born, remember, was the only member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets in 1998 to call for comprehensive regulation of OTC derivatives like credit default swaps.
Cox, then a member of Congress and the chairman of the Task Force on Capital Markets, vehemently opposed the regulation as did Alan Greenspan, Larry Summers and Robert Rubin. Well, we know what kind of havoc unregulated OTC derivatives have caused since then. Read more »
Goldman Sachs held a conference call for clients of the private wealth management unit this afternoon.
Lloyd Blankfein was on the call, as were several journalists who were no doubt leaked the call-in number and not thrown off as they usually are. As expected, the entire call seemed to be a nice advertisement for Goldman with Lloyd repeating most of what he said on Charlie Rose last week. This quote from the call pretty much sums it up:
“We don’t want people to just be happy to be with Goldman. We want them to be bragging.”
Tell that to IKB Deutsche Industriebank.
