On Wall Street, membership has its privileges

When these two banks enabled manipulative short selling, they were silently transferring wealth from the masses into the accounts of the privileged few.

One of the great episodes of The Simpsons follows Homer as he comes to realize that not all Springfield citizens are treated equally.

The difference, Homer eventually discovers, is membership in a secret society known as the Stonecutters. Once on the inside, Homer is delighted to find his new affiliation subjects him to an enviable set of alternate rules.

Obviously, this is parody, but it succeeds because it’s based on a truth to which we can all relate: the belief that status bestows disproportionate advantage upon a privileged few – up to and including license to engage in illegal behavior.

Homer and the Stonecutters immediately came to mind upon learning that, from 2005 through 2009, Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB) selectively disabled a system intended to block customers’ short sale orders when placed without valid locates, while the Fidelity-affiliated National Financial Securities (NFS) achieved the same end by creating an entirely separate system for certain customers disinterested in compliance with the rules governing how the rest of us can trade.

Shorting shares that have neither been borrowed nor, at a minimum, located for eventual borrowing, is an illegal and manipulative practice and the essence of naked short selling; and yet, Deutsche Bank and NFS decided certain customers were entitled to do it.

Back in 2006, small-time hedge fund manager Jeff Matthews announced he doubted naked shorting was possible because he didn’t know how to do it. In reality, the thing Matthews didn’t know (possibly to his credit) was the secret knock used to gain entrance to the mega-hedge fund speakeasy, where the real debauchery goes on.

Why should Matthews and others be excluded?

The better question is: why should anybody be included? I suspect the clients allowed to violate the law in this way also happened to be the ones paying Deutsche Bank and NFS the most in commissions. But this isn’t like a hotel claiming it’s full while holding a suite in reserve for someone more important than you, or NBA refs not calling traveling on the players everybody’s really paying to watch. Instead, when these two banks enabled such manipulative trading, they were silently transferring wealth from the masses into the accounts of the privileged few.

This is true of both long buyers and short sellers, for the longs saw their investments devalued by the naked shorting of stocks in their portfolios, while the shorts were forced to pay high premiums for hard-to-borrow stocks even as others were exempted from such inconvenient market forces as supply and demand. This happened across the market, but those who should be particularly bothered are the many Deutsche Bank and NFS account holders whose brokerages acted contrary to their best interests.

In fact, they ought to sue, in my opinion, to say nothing of what the Department of Justice ought to be doing about it.

Exactly how much did these years of market manipulation extract from investors? That’s impossible to know, however what I can say without doubt that it exceeds the combined $925,000 fine imposed by FINRA.

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  1. Irrelevant. This is just the industry saying to themselves, “well, we should do something.” Let’s fine them. Thanks to youse guys, the outrage is such we are seeing the politicians demand that pound of flesh. Cuomo moved today. I’m sure Blumenthal, Brown, and a few other AG’s will join in. And I believe Justice has to move.

    The pain is palpable. There is nothing left. This simple must end, must end now, and must be avenged. I love stuff like, “foreclosures down”, “fewer job losses.” Next we’ll have “fewer financially related suicides.” Of course, everyone is already foreclosed, jobless, and dead. Of course the numbers are lower.

    And all the major bank prop desks made profits every single trading day of the first quarter. You could have knocked me over with a .45 automatic. Shocker. A real shocker. Such talent on those desks.

  2. So Judd, how do you presume that the DOJ do their job when the “New Head” of the SEC Enforcement “Was” the General Counsel for Deutsche Bank for the last eight or so years? Does anyone see a minor conflict on interest with this yet? I know I do. Khusami(sp) has to refer the case to the DOJ no? See where I am heading with this? OK. Fire away please.

  3. I made this statement 4 years ago and will make it again. STOP ALL SHORTING PERIOD!!!! These strategies provide no value added to our economy!!!

  4. This is adding fuel to a potential revolution where company ‘heads’ like that of Blank-Fines will adorn pikes around certain streets in New Amsterdam.

    Bonfires can also be used in illuminating ways as well.

    1. The trick is to create a sense of a tightening noose upon the enemy. That means not striking in New Amsterdam in the initial phases – you hit the sanctuaries, the summer homes, ski homes, and then the suburbs. You corral them into the city to further isolate them.

  5. If you aren’t happy about this, you’re not alone…

    Lloyd Blankfein pays for new home with cash
    Last Updated: 4:07 AM, May 14, 2010
    Posted: 12:51 AM, May 14, 2010
    Comments: 11
    |More Print

    Goldman Sachs overlord Lloyd Blankfein is so rich, he bought his $26 million “Master of the Universe” duplex at 15 Central Park West in cash before finally selling his five-bedroom, seven-bath prewar duplex at 941 Park Ave. Blankfein just accepted an offer on that apartment, reports The Post’s Jennifer Gould Keil. The luxurious abode, asking $15 million last year, was most recently listed for $13.5 million — on top of which a buyer must pay $11,327 a month maintenance. In more Manhattan real estate news, Keil reports that Morton Binn, father of Niche Media (Hamptons, Ocean Drive) owner Jason Binn, just sold one of the last small rental buildings near Lin coln Center — 34 W. 65th St. — for $13.8 million. The six-story apartment house had been in the Binn family for more than 35 years, said broker Ivan Hakimian.

    Read more:
    http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/golden_deals_943UOiCHXi1BLMgs1QORXK

  6. In another universe, right now, the guilty from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche and several others, are being marched off to jail.

    While in jail, they will be utilized as cheap private prison labor, allowing for the massive downsizing of the IMF and World Bank, and instead using said cheap labor.

    Now that would be a really nice universe…..

  7. Note that this went undetected for 56 straight months. The question to ask now is how were these trades allowed to “clear and settle” at the DTCC? The failures to deliver from all of these illegal naked short sales were theoretically “cured” by the NSCC’s totally corrupt “stock borrow program” (SBP). The SBP takes an equivalent amount of shares as were failed to be delivered out of their SBP lending pool. These shares are then sent to the “shares account” of the NSCC participating clearing firm of the buyer of the NONEXISTENT shares. This clearing firm is then deemed to b the new “legal owner” of these “borrowed” shares. As the new “legal owner” of these “borrowed” shares it then has all of the right in the world to redonate them right back into the same SBP lending pool AS IF THEY NEVER LEFT IN THE FIRST PLACE i.e. it is a self-replenishing lending pool.

    The brokerage account of the original purchaser of those “loaned” shares is then invisibly credited with readily sellable “securities entitlement” that look exactly like real shares on a monthly brokerage statement. The “supply” of that within the affected corporation’s share structure that by law (UCC-8) has to be treated as being readily sellable then goes up by the amount of the NONEXISTENT shares sold. Therefore the share price must by definition go down a commensurate amount.

    These trades still haven’t legally “settled” as “settlement” necessitates the delivery “in good form” of that which the purchaser thought he was buying i.e. real voting shares. You can’t make “good form delivery” out of bogus self-replenishing lending pools. That’s referred to as the “counterfeiting of securities”. Keep in mind that what was sold firstly never got delivered “in good form” and secondly never EXISTED in the first place. Only the ILLUSION of good form delivery and therefore the “settlement” of the trade is being created. Note below in the article the role of “direct market access” which is also called “sponsored access”, “filtered access” or “naked access”. It provides an extra layer of anonymity to the naked short seller. Routing these orders through an ECN adds yet another layer of anonymity. Pretty soon there are so many layers of anonymity that the regulators and SROs on limited budgets can’t afford to chase down the bad guys.

    FINRA Fines Deutsche Bank Securities, National Financial Services A Total of $925,000 for Systemic Short Sale Violations. Both Firms Facilitated Customer Execution of Short Sales Through Direct Market Access Order Systems That Violated the ‘Locate’ Requirement of Regulation SHO

    WASHINGTON, May 13, 2010 –The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined two broker-dealers a total of $925,000 for executing numerous short sale orders in violation of Regulation SHO and for related supervisory violations. FINRA fined New York’s Deutsche Bank Securities $575,000 and Boston’s National Financial Services (NFS) $350,000.

    Regulation SHO requires that a broker or dealer may not accept or effect a short sale order in an equity security without reasonable grounds to believe that the security can be borrowed, so that it can be delivered on the date delivery is due. Identifying a source from which to borrow such security is generally referred to as obtaining a “locate.” Locates must be obtained and documented prior to effecting a short sale.

    Both Deutsche Bank and NFS implemented Direct Market Access trading systems for their customers that were designed to block the execution of short sale orders unless a “locate” had been obtained and documented. But FINRA found that Deutsche Bank disabled its system in certain instances and NFS created a separate system for certain customers — so that in both instances, the systems no longer blocked some short sale orders that did not have valid, associated locates.

    “The locate requirement is an essential component of ensuring that short sales are executed properly,” said James S. Shorris, FINRA Executive Vice President and Acting Chief of Enforcement. “The failure to design, implement and supervise systems that reasonably ensure that shares of a security are available to be borrowed before a short sale is executed significantly undermines the effectiveness of Regulation SHO.”

    FINRA’s review of a sample of short sale orders at both firms revealed that some short sale orders entered through the Direct Market Access trading systems were released for execution without any evidence that a locate had actually been obtained.

    In Deutsche Bank’s case, the firm’s systems sometimes experienced outages that prevented the importing of locate data and, as a result, short sale orders placed for execution were automatically rejected, even when a client had already obtained a valid and properly documented locate. FINRA found that during these system outages, Deutsche Bank disabled the system’s automatic block, permitting client short sale orders to automatically proceed for execution without first confirming the presence of an associated locate.

    FINRA found that in addition to its automated process, NFS created a separate manual locate request and approval process for approximately 12 of the firm’s prime brokerage clients, which preferred to obtain locates in multiple securities prior to commencement of the trading day. Requests for, and approvals of, the multiple simultaneous locates were transmitted via email exchanges with account representatives on the firm’s Prime Services Desk, and were not required to be entered into the firm’s stock loan system at the time of approval. Further, prime clients were allowed to enter and execute their orders through automated platforms that did not have the functionality to automatically block execution of a short sale order that did not have a valid and documented locate.

    FINRA also found that neither Deutsche Bank nor NFS performed a meaningful post-trade date review of short sale orders to identify short sale orders executed without a valid, associated locate having been obtained or documented.

    Further, FINRA found that both firms implemented inadequate supervisory systems in connection with their Regulation SHO compliance. Deutsche Bank was aware that its system to block short sale orders in the absence of locates was periodically disabled over a period of more than four years (from January 2005 through September 2009), but failed to devise or implement a replacement procedure. Similarly, NFS created a flawed system for certain customers that failed to ensure that certain short sale orders had valid and timely locates associated with them. NFS’s flawed system operated for nearly four years (from January 2005 through August 2008).

    Investors can obtain more information about, and the disciplinary record of, any FINRA-registered broker or brokerage firm by using FINRA’s BrokerCheck. FINRA makes BrokerCheck available at no charge. In 2009, members of the public used this service to conduct 18.5 million reviews of broker or firm records. Investors can access BrokerCheck at http://www.finra.org/brokercheck or by calling (800) 289-9999.

    FINRA is the largest non-governmental regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation and complementary compliance and technology-based services. FINRA touches virtually every aspect of the securities business — from registering and educating all industry participants to examining securities firms, writing and enforcing rules and the federal securities laws, informing and educating the investing public, providing trade reporting and other industry utilities, and administering the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and registered firms.
    For more information, please visit our Web site at http://www.finra.org.

  8. There is a pernicious swindle associated with short selling (naked or otherwise) that I thought I’d highlight.

    When you hold a dividend paying and heavily shorted stock in a margin account with a debit balance the chances are quite good that you will pay more in taxes than you thought you might. Don’t count on this being fully and plainly disclosed to you when you sign those margin account forms…it won’t be. And don’t think that your brokerage firm will have much sympathy for you.

    Last week Garmin, a heavily shorted stock, paid out a large extraordinary dividend. If your Garmin stock in a margin account was loaned out to a short seller you probably received a confirm indicating that a large portion of that dividend wasn’t, in fact, a dividend at all. It was instead a “substitute payment”, or funds forwarded to you in lieu of the actual dividends by the short seller who borrowed your stock. He received the so called dividend. Here’s the catch…his dividend qualified for a lower 15% tax rate and your “substitute payment” gets taxed as ordinary income.

    I think someone needs to rethink margin account and tax rules as this is unfair and punative to those long stock in a margin account. Moreover it isn’t properly disclosed. Since the substitute payment is clearly a pass through why shouldn’t its tax properties be passed through as well?

    And here’s what’s pernicious…the guy betting against the stock walks away with a tax benefit intended to spur capital formation and growth.

    1. What happens when they borrow shares in your cash account or retirement account?

      There’s no such thing as segregation. At the level of the clearing brokerages, they have a mass of shares and if they can make a nickel, they will lend them out. They don’t know how the brokerages below them have allocated them.

      The IRS is being rooked.

      On a capital gain, you are supposed to pay tax, but if they naked short a company into oblivion, but never cover, then the trade never closes. As long as it doesn’t close, the trade is technically pending and they don’t have to pay any tax.

  9. If you have stock in a cash or margin account the broker can not legally loan the shares, right? Do you ever get “PIL” (payment in lieu) for such shares (instead of “Dividend”)?

    1. In cash accounts the broker is holding shares for your benefit which you own free and clear. Those shares can not be lent. IRA and other tax qualified accounts (Keogh, Roth IRA etc) can not be margin accounts and therefore are treated like cash accounts with respect to lending shares.

      Additionally, margin accounts with long market value and no debit balance (no loan from broker) are, from the perspective of share lending, treated like cash accounts by many brokerage firms. I don’t know whether there is an industry convention in this set of circumstances. Fidelity tells me that it will not lend out shares in this scenario.

  10. What really bothers me about the Deutsche Bank and National Financial Services matter is what they do not tell us. What securities were naked shorted, how many shares, and what happened to the stock price? Why are the naked short sellers themselves not prosecuted?

  11. Your use of Jeff Matthews as an innocent bystander to shorting fraud, naked or otherwise, is flawed.

  12. i know the following has already been posted,
    but readers might want direct links to the details:

    Thursday, May 13, 2010
    FINRA Fines Deutsche Bank Securities, National Financial Services a Total of $925,000 for Systemic Short Sale Violations
    Both Firms Facilitated Customer Execution of Short Sales Through Direct Market Access Order Systems That Violated the ‘Locate’ Requirement of Regulation SHO
    Washington, DC — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that it has fined two broker-dealers a total of $925,000 for executing numerous short sale orders in violation of Regulation SHO and for related supervisory violations. FINRA fined New York’s Deutsche Bank Securities $575,000 and Boston’s National Financial Services (NFS) $350,000….
    read the rest @
    http://www.finra.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/2010/P121482

    View National Financial Services Action
    http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@enf/@ad/documents/industry/p121484.pdf

    View Deutsche Bank Securities Action
    http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@enf/@ad/documents/industry/p121483.pdf

  13. Florida investigating ‘bogus’ foreclosure records
    Attorney General looking at Fidelity National Financial and Lender Processing Services
    Posted: May 14, 2010 – 7:55pm
    http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2010-05-14/story/florida-investigating-bogus%E2%80%99-foreclosure-records
    …Fidelity National Financial bought Alpharetta, Ga.-based Docx in 2005. But the next year, the company spun off many of its holdings into an independent company, Fidelity National Information Services, and no longer owns Docx. Fidelity National Information Services spun off Lender Processing as a separate company in 2008….

  14. *** EVERY ATTEMPTED FORECLOSURE SHOULD BE CAREFULLY REVIEWED FOR PROPER DOCUMENTATION!!! ***

    Many foreclosures are arranged by parties who have not produced documentary proof that they have legal standing to perform the foreclosure!

  15. You might re-read that Deutsche Bank article cited above a few times. While a bunch of us have been working with algorithm specialists trying to discern the exact HOWS of naked short selling this case was very revealing in its simplicity.

    The play by play: The corrupt hedge fund calls his corrupt prime broker and says we want to naked short sell a bunch of “Acme”. The corrupt prime broker says no problem. He goes over to the corrupt brokerage firm and knocks on the back door with the secret knock. Who’s there? It’s one of us 12 corrupt prime brokers working with the corrupt clearing firm “X”. How can we help? We want to naked short sell a truckload of Acme. No problem! Have you already done your early morning simultaneous multiple securities locate to provide the smokescreen? Yep, we’re ready to go! OK give me 30 seconds to disable our Reg SHO compliance software and another 30 seconds to warn the NSCC to warm up their self-replenishing SBP machine and then let ‘er rip. Okeedokee! The order will be coming through the “Direct Market Access” program as usual. No problem. See you at the DTCC participant’s picnic over the weekend. Wouldn’t miss it!

  16. Anonymous, Fred and roundclock,
    You make some very valid points. The ’33 and ’34 Acts clearly dictate that “fully paid for shares” in Type 1 cash accounts, shares held in margin accounts in an “excess margin capacity” as well as shares held in “qualified retirement plans” (under the ERISA Laws) are to be not only segregated from the host brokerage firm but not available to be loaned to short sellers.

    The problem is that with the NSCC’s “automated stock borrow program” (SBP) all NSCC participating clearing firms are 100% put on the “honor system” in regards to the shares they donate into the SBP lending pool. This is despite the existence of the gigantic financial incentive to cheat due to the fact that the clearing firm whose donated shares are chosen to “cure” a delivery failure are given the use of the cash value of those shares to earn interest off of and to count towards their net capital reserves. Not only this but the NSCC insists on holding shares in the SBP lending pool in an “anonymously pooled” format wherein the counterfeiting of individual parcels of shares is impossible to trace. There are many dozens of NSCC policies that blatantly invite abuses followed by the NSCC management’s refusal to monitor for and address these abuses despite their being an SRO mandated to do so.
    Here’s the first dozen of many dozens: shares from their self-replenishing SBP being allowed to cure delivery failures, “anonymous pooling”, the DTC acting as the “surrogate legal custodian” of all “street name” shares, the DTC’s nominee acting as the “surrogate legal owner” of all street name shares, the NSCC acting as the “central counterparty” (CCP) to all transactions, the NSCC acting as the “surrogate creditor” of all failed delivery obligations, the NSCC’s use of their “C” and “D” sub-accounts to store and hide archaic delivery failures and the readily sellable “security entitlements” they spawn, the NSCC’s refusal to disclose the level of FTDs they have visibility of in their “C” and “D” sub accounts, the NSCC and DTC gaining a monopoly of 15 of the 16 source of empowerment to execute buy-in when their abusive participants refuse to deliver that which they sold and then pleading to be “powerless” to execute buy-ins, the NSCC’s bribing of the clearing firms that failed to get delivery of that which their clients purchased if they opt not to execute a buy-in, the NSCC’s not allowing their participants to buy-in each other without first filing an “Intent to buy-in” which is followed by the NSCC insisting on saying we’ll take it from here and running the FTD right back through the self-replenishing SBP and the NSCC’s volunteering to act as a “qualified control location” empowered to grant compliance with Rule 15c3-3 (“The Customer Protection Rule”). Any “qualified control location” would immediately buy-in any FTD the second it became obvious that the seller of shares had no intent to deliver that which it sold.

    In the case of cash dividends being distributed to the shareholders of heavily naked short sold corporations it gets very interesting in that the IRS has made it clear that it is only going to give preferential tax treatment to the number of “qualifying dividends” as referenced on Form 1099-DIV equal to the number of legitimate shares “outstanding” at the time of the dividend record date. As part of the margin agreements used now there is typically a warning about dividends that may or may not get preferential tax treatment. Oddly enough, sometimes a margin agreement will refer to a “lottery process” to determine who gets favorable tax treatment.

    Where it gets really interesting is with the nonmarginable development stage corporations under attack that have usually zero shares held in margin accounts yet gigantic naked short positions. While matching the cash value of any cash dividend the crooks can either cheat the IRS or cheat the shareholders that bought nonexistent shares from receiving tax preferential treatment. Remember that the crooks have no idea what tax bracket the purchasers of nonexistent shares are in so they can’t reimburse the differential between favorable and unfavorable tax treatment.

    This is all due to the fact that the “security entitlements” invisibly credited to accounts when delivery failures occur have no voting or inherent “qualified dividend” rights. The “security entitlements” created during FTDs are not “shares”; they are merely electronic book entries denoting failed delivery obligations. Because of this there are a series of cover-up frauds that need to be perpetrated during voting procedures and the issuance of qualified dividends. When you send in your proxy vote in a heavily naked short sold issuer you can attempt to vote that which you purchased but they’re not going to count.

    In the case of voting rights you will be accorded a “pro rata voting interest” in the number of shares purchased at your clearing firm THAT WERE DELIVERED “IN GOOD FORM”. The cancellation of your voting power occurs in the back offices. The entire premise of a U.S. corporation being founded upon the concept of “shares” acting as the unit of equity ownership and “one share, one vote” had to be thrown under the bus so that the corrupt DTCC participating “securities intermediaries” (MMs, clearing firms and prime brokers) could make a ton of EXTRA money by processing casino-like “derivative” bets (the “security entitlements” resulting from delivery failures are indeed “derivatives” of legitimate shares) and themselves being able to place “derivative” bets i.e. naked short selling. You can’t hardly lose your bet when the very method of placing your negative bet while refusing to deliver that which you sold or using credit default swaps enhances the prognosis for the success of your bet.

    There is a group of market reform advocates that are mad as hell and are grooming development stage corporations with massive naked short positions that happen to be in a position to issue generous cash dividends. We’ll be rolling out a “trial balloon/template” soon. With the refusal of the regulators and SROs to deal with these issues it’s time to see what deterrence the IRS and the potential for jail time can provide. It will be interesting to see if the abusive short sellers will choose to cheat the IRS by issuing bogus 1099-DIVS and risk jail time, cheat the people they sold nonexistent shares to out of their tax preferential treatment and risk jail time or cover before the dividend record date. Recall that in the penny stock sector there are no margin accounts where tax preferential treatment can be legally apportioned. In this sector with no institutional ownership of securities and no shares in margin accounts there is no such thing as legal short selling involving pre-borrows or “locates”. Even theoretically bona fide MMs are on the hook for matching all cash dividends as well as the tax preferential treatment the purchasers of shares are expecting.

    Oh and by the way why hasn’t even one financial news agency, regulator or SRO cited the obvious role of the lack of an “uptick rule” in the recent 1,000 point “flash crash”?

    1. Dr. Jim,

      You added a lot of detail and information on topics tangentially related to the primary issue I raised; namely that the IRS is inadvertently subsidizing through its tax policy those who borrow shares for the purpose of selling them short. As a result, it is supporting a corner (however big) of the short selling universe that naked short sells for the express purpose of constraining a company’s access to capital…an activity which is may be illegal but is certainly in direct opposition to the underlying purpose of the qualified dividend preference.

      There is a tax policy issue here that, in my opinion, is very big. And tax issues are the domain of the IRS and not the SEC.

      Another issue, perhaps more directly related to NSS, involves the broader payment system and Reg T. Am I the only one who thinks it antiquated to have cash payment for cash and margin account stock take place two days after the settlement of the stock transaction? Everything is moved electronically. Why not do payment on the settlement date? This is the Fed’s domain, not the SEC. As I recall, failure to pay on the current T+5 (3 days to settle, 2 days to pay) results in a sell out and freezing of the account. If the Fed brought T+5 in to T+3, a failure to deliver would result in a payment failure and trigger the sell out and account freeze.

      Is this right Dr. Jim?

  17. Designated Market Makers

    As part of an initiative to further enhance the performance, quality and competitiveness of NYSE and NYSE Amex markets, the role of the “Designated Market Maker” (DMM) succeeded the “Specialist”.

    Have true obligations to maintain a fair and orderly market in their stocks;

    http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/fact_sheet_dmm.pdf

    1. GW is genuflecting to Khuzami and, yet again, defending EINHORN.

      He really just wants ALL ENFORCEMENT against naked shorting to disappear.

  18. IRA accounts may be segregated at your brokerage, but they are not segregated at the clearing brokerage or depository and are lent out just like any other share. I know this from personal experience when I tried to pull share certificates from a segregated account only to find out they didn’t exist.

  19. Dr. Jim DeCosta,

    – WHY did NOT the SROs MANDATE BUY-INS for all the Naked Short Shares both Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB, Fidelity-affiliated National Financial Securities (NFS) and Goldman Sachs facilitated?

    – WHY did NOT the SROs MANDATE BUY-INS by all the Hedge Funds that used Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB), Fidelity-affiliated National Financial Securities (NFS) and Goldman Sachs facilitated?

  20. Say what you want about Weiss and I can’t stand the SOB at all, but that was a damn accurrate article. Now we all know that he is going after the SEC at the behest of the Hedgies but…I think he is putting some valuable food for thought and facts out there. Now excuse me while I go throw-up!!! LOL!!!

        1. Weiss should be in prison, witness protection, or in the ground. His reputation is a tertiary objective at this point.

  21. Dr. Jim DeCosta and All,

    – SROs (FINRA, SEC, etc.), Where is the LIST OF CLIENTS that Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB), Fidelity-affiliated National Financial Securities (NFS) and Goldman Sachs allowed to illegally counterfeit shares of publicly traded companies?

    – SROs (FINRA, SEC, etc.), Where is the LIST OF TARGETED COMPANIES?
    ….. So the Targeted companies can sue for financial compensation for all the harm done to their stockholders and employees?

    – SROs (FINRA, SEC, etc.), Where is the investigation into whether the LIST OF CLIENTS knew they were being ALLOWED to illegally counterfeit stock shares for the purpose of illegally manipulating the share price DOWN?

  22. iStandUp,

    That’s the catch, according to the NSCC policies there are no “failures to deliver” resulting from these naked short sales. They were already theoretically “cured” by the self-replenishing SBP. The same “parcel” of let’s say 100,000 impossible to identify “Acme” shares held in an “anonymously pooled” format may have “cured” 1 million shares worth of delivery failures of Acme but we can’t prove that the very same parcel of shares was purchased by and is currently “co-beneficially owned” by a dozen different investors due to “anonymous pooling” because there is no such thing as a “specific” parcel of shares when held in this format.
    The NSCC’s SBP has 3 criminal functions. It allows the same parcel of impossible to identify shares to cure an unlimited amount of delivery failures. It then hides the evidence of the share price depressing “security entitlements” spawned by these FTDs from the public view in its “C” sub accounts and it prevents them from ever being bought-in because even after acquiring a virtual monopoly on the sources of empowerment to execute buy-ins the NSCC and the DTC subdivisions’ management teams pretend to be “powerless” to execute buy-ins. There is only one cure available when an abusive DTCC participant absolutely refuses to deliver the securities that it sold and that’s a buy-in. There is only one source of meaningful deterrence to these thefts and that is the fear of being bought in. No deterrence, no cure, no problem.

    There are two types of delivery failures at the NSCC. “Legitimate” delivery failures are of an ultra-short termed nature and result from “legitimate” causes usually associated with the burdensome nature of paper certificates. Then there are “illegitimate/intentional/strategic” delivery failures (Dr. Leslie Boni 2003) of a criminal nature. In essence what the NSCC does is it has a default presumption that all delivery failures are of a “legitimate” nature unless proven to be otherwise. The problem is by the time you can prove “otherwise” (perhaps by T+6 or so) then it’s too late to do anything about it in that it has already been (theoretically) “cured”, hidden from public view and prevented from ever being bought in. Now that’s one very well designed “systemic fraud on the market”. It should come as no surprise that the NSCC management facilitating these thefts from Main Street “long” investors are the employees of the abusive NSCC “participants” doing the naked short selling.

    1. So again, this confirms that the SEC and other SROs protect corporations and their stockholders from illegal Naked Counterfeit Shorting the way a rancher protects his cattle – so they can be slaughtered for a profit by their Wall Street Fraternity Brothers.

  23. You think the U.S. might do this? LOL!I’m only kidding..never happen.

    EU to draft new rules, sanctions for derivatives

    AOIFE WHITE | May 17, 2010 08:15 AM EST |

    Compare other versions »
    Compare 08:15 AM EST07:03 AM EST06:38 AM EST and 08:15 AM EST07:03 AM EST06:38 AM EST versions

    ——————————————————————————–

    BRUSSELS — The European Union will draft new rules to tighten oversight of derivatives markets and set new fines for manipulating trades in complex financial instruments that some blame for worsening the financial crisis.

    EU Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said Monday that regulators had to know more about derivatives and the investors behind them. He would demand all products and trading to be registered with trade depositories that regulators could access.

    “These people don’t like coming out in the light so we are going to flood them with light,” he said.

    The $600 trillion sector is largely unregulated at present, with many trades taking place privately between investors. Derivatives are financial contracts that do not require a trader to own the underlying security or financial asset. They include swaps, options and more complex instruments.

    Barnier said his proposal, due in late July or early September, would cover “all eligible over-the-counter derivatives markets” – those which don’t operate on an exchange – and include capital and liquidity requirements. He gave few details on specific limits that the EU would set.

    He also wants to review existing market abuse and financial market oversight laws to cover over-the-counter derivatives in a way that could see traders fined for manipulating the market by spreading false information.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20100517/eu-eu-financial-regulation/

    1. Yes, the noose grows a tad bit tighter, but not so tight as a necktie.

      Consequently, Soros and his ilk are setting up offices in Hong Kong.

      For once, I’d like to see them stay here and be punished via DOJ RICO statutes as deserved.

      Meantime, there should be no business in the US for these bastards until justice is served.

      Goes double for GS, MS, Einhorn et al.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64G31W20100517

  24. What’s important to realize is that the new amended Reg SHO mandates that non-market makers that fail to deliver by T+3 must “purchase or borrow” those shares by the opening of T+4. “Bona fide” MMs have until the morning of T+6. Sounds good, right? Wrong! What happens in between the close of business on T+3 and the opening of trading on T+4? It’s the night time cycle of the totally corrupt NSCC “stock borrow program” or SBP. The crooks are obviously going to choose the “borrow” option for compliance because there is an unlimited amount of impossible to identify shares “cycling” in and out of the SBP available to “borrow”.

    When a delivery failure of “Acme” shares occurs the NSCC management reaches into the SBP “lending pool” for Acme and “borrows” a like amount of shares to theoretically “cure” the failure to deliver (FTD). These “borrowed” shares are electronically transmitted to the NSCC “participant’s shares account” of the clearing firm of the buyer of the undelivered shares. The NSCC then mysteriously bestows “legal ownership” upon the buying clearing firm for the recently “borrowed” shares. As the new “legal owner” of these recently “borrowed” shares this clearing firm has all of the right in the world to re-donate them right back into that very same lending pool AS IF THEY NEVER LEFT IN THE FIRST PLACE. Since when does a “borrow” include the transfer of “legal ownership”?

    If this “borrow” were characterized as a “sale”, which it really is, then the original purchaser of the shares that went into the SBP lending pool would have to be told that he lost the ability to sell that which he purchased. Well, this obviously wouldn’t be acceptable to “long” investors so the NSCC is forced to characterize this “sale” involving the transfer of legal ownership as a “borrow” to keep those Main Street “long” investors being defrauded from realizing it.

    A clearance and settlement system with integrity would not allow FTDs access to the SBP “cure”. Singapore now forces these “purchases or borrows” to occur 2 hours before the close of trading on T+3 to circumvent the use of “faux-borrows” from the SBP on the night of T+3. In other words FTDs are not allowed to occur! If the DTCC is going to attain a monopoly on the soures of empowerment to execute the all-important buy-ins of FTDs and then refuse to do so then OBVIOUSLY FTDs can’t be allowed to occur i.e. go Singapore style.

  25. (Reuters) – Millennium Management has appointed former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt to a newly formed board to advise the big hedge fund on regulatory matters.

  26. That Brussels article on derivatives cited above was interesting. Have you noticed what almost all “derivatives” have in common? They allow the negative bets being placed by Wall Street’s short selling “securities intermediaries” and the hedge funds directing them order flow to influence the outcome of the bet. That’s insane, allowing the METHOD of placing a negative bet by those with no economic interest whatsoever in a corporation or financial asset to influence the OUTCOME of the bet in a “stuffing the ballot box” fashion. The concept sounds more like financial terrorism hiding under the guise of “injecting liquidity”. U.S. investors don’t want the benefits of “liquidity” involving “tighter spreads” and being able to get in on an investment at a slightly lower entry level at the expense of the prognosis for the success of the “long” bet failing out of bed. Discounted tickets onto the Titanic aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

    In the “derivatives” known as credit default swaps (CDSs) crooks can intentionally drive up the price for this “insurance against default” of a bond. The ratings guys notice this and drop the rating of the bond and the credit default swaps become worth a fortune. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    In abusive short selling the crooks refuse to deliver that which they contracted to deliver on T+3 because they know the NSCC’s SBP (Stock Borrow Program) will “cure” the FTD, hide the FTD and the NSCC management will refuse to buy-in the FTD. This refusal to deliver not only establishes a naked short position but also induces the issuance of a like number of “derivatives” known as “security entitlements”. Since these “derivatives” are readily sellable then their addition to the “supply” variable drives the share price downwards which monetizes the naked short position. Once again, the use of “derivatives” in leading to self-fulfilling prophecies for those that place negative bets. The result is the new paradigm involving chasing the big bucks by DESTROYING things for a living whether they be U.S. corporations, entrepreneurial dreams, our nation’s job growth engine, the capital formation process, retirement plans, etc.

    Something just isn’t right when those with no economic interest whatsoever in a U.S. corporation can be financially rewarded for breaking their contract to deliver on T+3 that which they sold. Equally ridiculous is allowing the “derivative” of the underlying unit of equity ownership of a U.S. corporation known as a “share” to negatively impact the value of the underlying “share” from which it was “derived” in a tail wagging the dog fashion. Allowing known arsonists (DTCC participants and their co-conspiring hedge fund “guests”) to buy fire insurance on their neighbor’s house (a U.S. corporation) when their employees (the DTCC management) are congressionally mandated to wear a “fire marshall” (SRO) hat doesn’t make a whole lot of sense either. The willful entering into a contract to deliver the securities being sold followed by the willful refusal to deliver these securities not only douses the corporation with accelerant (the readily sellable “security entitlements”) but also strikes the match.

    So who are the beneficiaries of all of these thefts from Main Street “long” investors? There are 3 categories. Firstly you have the DTCC “participants” acting as “securities intermediaries” that make otherwise unattainable income on buying, selling and renting out all of these “EXTRA” security entitlements (“derivatives”) above and beyond the number of shares a corporation has “outstanding”. Secondly you have the DTCC “participants” (especially MMs) that actually place these negative bets by illegally accessing the “bona fide MM exemption” (from making pre-borrows or “locates”) and refusing to deliver that which they sold. Thirdly you have the hedge funds willing to funnel a portion of the $11 billion they pay annually to the DTCC “participating” MMs, clearing firms and prime brokers willing to break the greatest amount of securities laws on behalf of the financial interests of the hedge fund managers.

  27. Jim et al, can you feel it coming..? I can

    US Stocks Fall On Reports Of German Ban On Naked Short-Selling
    NOOOOO NSS does not exist…………

    1. Said that it is highly likely – tonite.

      When will it be banned here? In the land of the ‘free’ sale?

    2. I read that it is just for 10 select financial companies and for CDSes.

      The perpetrators want to be shielded from the crime, and so does the sheriff (Germany the state itself) but the rest of us out there trying to create businesses that build real value? We’re on our own.

      1. Many companies here were listed in Germany against their permission when the NASD tried to crack down on phantom shares here, but they won’t be protected from naked short selling?

        Only the big banks?

  28. Bafin Confirms German Ban on Naked Short-Selling at Midnight
    Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A By Alan Crawford

    May 18 (Bloomberg) — Germany’s BaFin financial-services regulator said that it will introduce a temporary ban on naked short-selling and naked credit-default swaps of euro-area government bonds starting at midnight.

    The ban will also apply to naked short-selling in shares of 10 banks and insurers including Allianz SE and Deutsche Bank AG, BaFin said today in an e-mailed statement.

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asFWbw4CZ6yo&pos=1

  29. This just makes me madder than hell. Breaking development stage companies for profit under the guise of “liquidity” is first-rate criminal, and adds no value to the system.

    I wish I knew where to go as I go through capitalizing my new company. We are private almost exclusively because I simply will not take the risk of inhabiting the publicly-traded shark-infested waters. I think many others are being pushed into the private space for the same reasons. This damages severely our access to capital.

    Now I am soon going to need to do a very large construction finance deal, and I don’t want to work with crooks. Unfortunately they all seem to have fingers in it one way or another… Very frustrating.

    I am sad to see Fidelity is part of all this. I traded with them for years. I spent 4 years managing a hedge fund before starting my current real-economy venture, and what I see happening now just disgusts me. It’s hard to want to play a game you know is rigged from the start.

  30. Germans are sending Naked short sellers back to us. I love it this country will just let them loot us all. Cant play in Germany, lets look elsewhere
    Roubini Says U.S. May Face Bond Market ‘Vigilantes’
    By Jennifer Ryan

    May 19 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. may fall victim to bond “vigilantes” targeting indebted nations from the U.K. to Japan in a potential second stage of the financial crisis, New York University professor Nouriel Roubini said.

    “Bond market vigilantes have already woken up in Greece, in Spain, in Portugal, in Ireland, in Iceland, and soon enough they could wake up in the U.K., in Japan, in the United States, if we keep on running very large fiscal deficits,” Roubini said at an event at the London School of Economics yesterday. “The chances are, they are going to wake up in the United States in the next three years and say, ‘this is unsustainable.”

    The euro slid to the lowest level in more than four years against the dollar today as a German ban on some speculative trading fueled concern the European debt crisis will worsen. Roubini suggested the public debt burden incurred after the 2008 bank panic may now cause the financial crisis to metamorphose.

    “There is now a massive re-leveraging of the public sector, with budget deficits on the order of 10 percent” of gross domestic product “in a number of countries,” Roubini said. “History would suggest that maybe this crisis is not really over. We just finished the first stage and there’s a risk of ending up in the second stage of this financial crisis.”

    German Ban

    Germany banned naked short-selling on European government bonds with credit-default swaps today in an effort to calm financial markets, sparking investor anxiety about increasing regulation. German Chancellor Angela Merkel laid out proposals to gain control over “destructive” financial markets as her government seeks to extend the ban across Europe.

    The euro weakened to as low as $1.2144 for the first time since April 2006. The currency traded down 1.3 percent at $1.2181 as of 10:06 a.m. in London.

    Roubini, who predicted in 2006 that a financial crisis was imminent, said that the record U.S. budget deficit may persist amid a stalemate in Congress between Republicans blocking tax increases and Democrats who oppose cuts in spending.

    “In many advanced economies, the political will to do the right thing is constrained,” he said.

    The U.S. posted its largest April budget deficit on record as the excess of spending over revenue rose to $82.7 billion. The federal debt is currently projected to reach 90 percent of the economy by 2020.

    Roubini, speaking in a lecture hall packed with students who then queued to meet him at a book-signing, reiterated that the euro region faces the threat of a breakup after the Greek budget crisis. The European Union said yesterday it transferred the first installment of emergency loans to Greece, one day before 8.5 billion euros ($10.4 billion) of bonds come due.

    “Even today there is a risk of a breakup of the monetary union, the euro zone as well,” Roubini said. “A double dip recession in the euro zone” is “something that’s not unlikely, given what’s happening.”

    To contact the reporter on this story: Jennifer Ryan in London at [email protected]

    Last Updated: May 19, 2010

  31. SEC can’t even analyze GB of data:

    “The SEC and CFTC said they are going through more than 25 gigabytes of data to figure out what happened that day.”

    Pathetic.

    I have terabytes of music files and I can play a given tune when I want.

  32. How Goldman Sachs Sucks the Life Out Of Its Clients…

    Here is a new article about Goldman Sachs, which explains via eye-witnesses –( How Goldman Sachs Sucks the Life out of its Clients…

    Clients Worried About Goldman’s Dueling Goals
    By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and LOUISE STORY
    Published: May 18, 2010

    “Questions have been raised that go to the heart of this institution’s most fundamental value: how we treat our clients.” — Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman Sachs’s C.E.O., at the firm’s annual meeting in May

    As the housing crisis mounted in early 2007, Goldman Sachs was busy selling risky, mortgage-related securities issued by its longtime client, Washington Mutual, a major bank based in Seattle.

    Although Goldman had decided months earlier that the mortgage market was headed for a fall, it continued to sell the WaMu securities to investors. While Goldman put its imprimatur on that offering, traders in the same Goldman unit were not so sanguine about WaMu’s prospects: they were betting that the value of WaMu’s stock and other securities would decline.

    Goldman’s wager against its customer’s stock — a position known as a “short” — was large enough that it would have generated at least $10 million in profits if WaMu collapsed, according to documents recently released by Congress. And by mid-May, Goldman’s bet against other WaMu securities had made Goldman $2.5 million, the documents show.

    WaMu eventually did collapse under the weight of souring mortgage loans; federal regulators seized it in September 2008, making it the biggest bank failure in American history.

    Goldman’s bets against WaMu, wagers that took place even as it helped WaMu feed a housing frenzy that Goldman had already lost faith in, are examples of conflicting roles that trouble its critics and some former clients. While Goldman has legions of satisfied customers and maintains that it puts its clients first, it also sometimes appears to work against the interests of those same clients when opportunities to make trading profits off their financial troubles arise.

    CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES

    As Trading Arm Grows, a Clash of Purpose

    When new hires begin working at Goldman, they are told to follow 14 principles that outline the firm’s best practices. “Our clients’ interests always come first” is principle No. 1. The 14th principle is: “Integrity and honesty are at the heart of our business.”

    But some former insiders, who requested anonymity because of concerns about retribution from the firm, say Goldman has a 15th, unwritten principle that employees openly discuss.

    It urges Goldman workers to embrace conflicts and argues that they are evidence of a healthy tension between the firm and its customers. If you are not embracing conflicts, the argument holds, you are not being aggressive enough in generating business.

    Mr. van Praag said the firm was “unaware” of this 15th principle, adding that “any business in any industry, has potential conflicts and we all have an obligation to manage them effectively.”

    But a former Goldman partner, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the company’s view of customers had changed in recent years. Under Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, and a cadre of top lieutenants who have ramped up the firm’s trading operation, conflict avoidance had shifted to conflict management, this person said. Along the way, he said, the firm’s executives have come to see customers more as competitors they trade against than as clients.

    CREATIVE DESTRUCTION

    Fostering a Market Then Abandoning It

    Even now, two years after a dispute with Goldman, C. Talbot Heppenstall Jr. gets miffed talking about the firm.

    As treasurer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a leading nonprofit health care institution, Mr. Heppenstall had once been pleased with Goldman’s work on the enterprise’s behalf.

    Beginning in 2002, Goldman had advised officials at U.P.M.C. to raise funds by issuing auction-rate securities. Auction-rate securities are stock or debt instruments with interest rates that reset regularly (usually weekly) in auctions overseen by the brokerage firms that sell them. Municipalities, student loan companies, mutual funds, hospitals and museums all used the securities to raise operating funds.

    Goldman had helped to develop the auction-rate market and advised many clients to issue them, getting an annual fee for sponsoring the auctions. Between 2002 and 2008, U.P.M.C. issued $400 million; Goldman underwrote $160 million, while Morgan Stanley and UBS sold the rest.

    But in the fall of 2007, as the credit crisis deepened, investors began exiting the $330 billion market, causing interest rates on the securities to drift upward. By mid-January 2008, U.P.M.C. was concerned about the viability of the market and asked Goldman if the hospital should get out. Stay the course, Goldman advised U.P.M.C. in a letter, a copy of which Mr. Heppenstall read to a reporter.

    On Feb. 12, less than a month after that letter, Goldman withdrew from the market — the first Wall Street firm to do so, according to a Federal Reserve report. Other firms quickly followed suit.

    MUNI MANAGEMENT

    Brokering State Debt and Advising Against It

    A state assemblyman in New Jersey named Gary S. Schaer also has had unsettling encounters with Goldman.

    Mr. Schaer, who heads the New Jersey Assembly’s Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee, said he became wary in 2008 when he learned that Goldman, one of the state’s main investment bankers, was encouraging speculators to bet against New Jersey’s debt in the derivatives market. (At the time, a former Goldman chief executive, Jon Corzine, was New Jersey’s governor).

    Goldman had managed $4.2 billion in debt issuance for the state since 2004, receiving fees for arranging those deals.

    A 59-page collection of trading ideas that Goldman put together in 2008, and which was reviewed by The New York Times, shows the firm recommending that customers buy insurance to protect themselves against a debt default by New Jersey. In addition to New Jersey, Goldman advocated placing bets against the debt of eight other states in the trading book. Goldman also underwrote debt for all but two of those states in 2008, according to Thomson Reuters.

    Mr. Schaer complained to Mr. Blankfein in a letter in December 2008. A response came back from Kevin Willens, a managing director in Goldman’s public finance unit; he argued that Goldman maintained impermeable barriers between its unit that had helped New Jersey raise debt and another unit that was urging investors to bet against the state’s ability to repay that debt. Mr. Schaer replied that he doubted the barriers were impenetrable.

    “New Jersey taxpayers cannot be expected to pay tens of millions of dollars in investment banking fees while another department of the very same firm — albeit one clearly and strategically walled off — actively or aggressively advocates the sale of the very same or similar bonds in the aftermath,” Mr. Schaer wrote.

    TRADING MATRIX

    As Client Positions Sour, Goldman Defends Own

    Goldman’s powerful and nimble trading desk has become a reliable fountain of profits for the firm. But it has also instilled fear among some clients who say they believe, as Mr. Killinger and others at Washington Mutual did, that Goldman trades against the interests of some of its clients.

    Trading desks make big bets using the firm’s and clients’ money. Goldman’s trading operation has grown so pivotal and influential that many analysts say the firm as a whole now operates more like a hedge fund than an investment bank — another benchmark of the firm’s internal evolution that can create new friction with clients.

    For example, if Goldman makes a proprietary bet in a particular market, as it did in early 2007 when it amassed a huge wager against mortgages, what stops it from positioning itself against clients who operate in that market?

    Bear Stearns, a now defunct investment bank, is a case in point.

    With the housing crisis gathering steam in March 2007, Goldman created and sold to clients a $1 billion package of mortgage-related securities called Timberwolf. Within months, investors lost 80 percent of their money as Timberwolf plummeted.

    ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/business/19client.html?pagewanted=1&hp )

  33. What about this youtube video that just came out linking Goldman Sachs to a Russian Computer programmer math whiz who worked for Goldman Sachs and was arrested by the FBI after he downloaded over 1000 secret codes and files to a German Web Site. He was arrested July 3rd, 2009. What did Germany know about these secrets sent to that German Web Site. Is that why Germany banned naked short selling May 18th, 2010.

    A must see video about Wall Street Dirty secrets out on youTube. here is the video clip link.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNiTANt8m4Y

    please review it and sent all over internet.

    Richard
    http://www.SiriusNews.com

  34. Bafin Confirms German Ban on Naked Short-Selling at Midnight Share Business ExchangeTwitterFacebook| Email | Print | A A A By Alan Crawford May 18 (Bloomberg) — Germany’s BaFin financial-services regulator said that it will introduce a temporary ban on naked short-selling and naked credit-default swaps of euro-area government bonds starting at midnight. The ban will also apply to naked short-selling in shares of 10 banks and insurers including Allianz SE and Deutsche Bank AG, BaFin said today in an e-mailed statement. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asFWbw4CZ6yo&pos=1

  35. I’ve been browsing on-line greater than three hours these days, but I never found any fascinating article like yours. It’s pretty price enough for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made just right content material as you did, the web will likely be much more useful than ever before.

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