Updated:

Jan 14, 2019

Original:

Dec 18, 2012

Has Steve Cohen Started Wearing A Ping Jiang Mask While Walking The SAC Trading Floor, White Board Marker In Hand?

Unclear but, based on recent reports, very possible. If you can come up with another idea re: how the "intimidating Cohen has become even more intimidating" in the wake of MartomaGate, we're all ears.

Author:

Unclear but, based on recent reports, very possible. If you can come up with another idea re: how the "intimidating Cohen has become even more intimidating" in the wake of MartomaGate, we're all ears.

Cohen and his top lieutenants have been trying to calm SAC employees, telling analysts and traders who work for SAC that Cohen is confident he has done nothing wrong, according to a person familiar with the matter, who is not authorized to speak publicly about the case. SAC received a Wells Notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission in November, but no charges have been filed against Cohen. Nonetheless, the atmosphere in the firm’s offices—hardly a bastion of good cheer, even under the best of circumstances—is described as tense, with the intimidating Cohen even more intimidating than usual.

What We Know About Trading At SAC Capital [Bloomberg BusinessWeek]

The good news, if you are Mr. Steve Cohen: you were neither charged nor "mentioned by name" in the criminal complaint against your former employee, Mathew Martoma. The less good news: YOU ARE PORTFOLIO MANAGER A. YOU NEVER WANT TO BE PORTFOLIO MANAGER A!

Back in October, we detailed a list of things that, if you are the hedge fund manager who goes by the name Steven A. Cohen, you really don't want to hear first thing in the morning. They included: “The fleeces are on back order”; “Your ex-wife is in the lobby”; “There’s a photographer here who said he’s been authorized to shoot you wearing a king’s robe and crown for a set of playing cards”; “You’ve been outmaneuvered for the Toledo Mud Hens. But I hear the Binghamton Mets may be available.” Today we must update that list to include another thing, perhaps THE thing,* that people delivering news to Cohen don't want to relay. Paraphrasing but any variants on: "Mr. Cohen, we've received a Wells notice and by the way, they're considering naming you personally."

What? Anything is possible and that would be grounds for an all-staff call. You don't know.

"We have been remarkably successful in convincing persons to cooperate with the government, and provide evidence to us, and in court of law," SEC director of enforcement Robert Khuzami said during a press conference the day the government went public with its charges of insider trading against former SAC Capital employee Mathew Martoma. To the untrained ear, Khuzami probably appeared to be speaking to no one in particular, just sending a general message to any would-be criminals out there that once the government got to their co-conspirators, it'd be all over. No one wants to do time, and everybody flips. To those who've been following Operations Perfect Hedge, though, and have watched the Feds' relentless pursuit of Steven A. Cohen, it was obvious they were sending a clear message to the Big Guy: "We got ya boy, and ya goin' down." And since its track record of getting people to turn on their colleagues and in some cases, their best friends (see: Noah Freeman/Donald Longueuil, and these guys, and these guys, and this guy) really has been "remarkably successful," and since Martoma has a wife and two young kids and his whole life ahead of him, Khuzami and Co. probably assumed they had this one in the bag. But not so.

As you may have heard, in addition to the salary he was paid by the University of Michigan, Dr. Sidney Gilman made about $100,000/year through his side-gig advising "a wide network of Wall Street traders." That network included included Mathew Martoma, recently charged with running “the most lucrative insider trading scheme ever,” based on the information he received from Gilman, who made it a habit of leaking highly confidential information to the former SAC Capital employee. While most people that engage in fraud can't help but spend their ill-gotten gains in a flashy way that attracts unwanted attention (expensive cars, private jets, chinchilla fur coats) the Times reports that Sid Gilman's supplementary income "was not readily apparent in his lifestyle in Michigan." For instance, no second home and no bragging to his colleagues about his life on Wall Street. Still, on at least one occasion, the doctor couldn't help but let the underage girl sitting next to him on a flight home know that she was in the presence of a BSD.

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