Are you willing to change your mind based on contrary evidence?
Such as email evidence from a leading executive of Merrill Lynch, recently found by
@Artful Dodger:
Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling' | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone
The lawsuit between Overstock and the banks concerned a phenomenon called naked short-selling, a kind of high-finance counterfeiting that, especially prior to the introduction of new regulations in 2008, short-sellers could use to artificially depress the value of the stocks they’ve bet against. The subject of naked short-selling is a) highly technical, and b) very controversial on Wall Street, with many pundits in the financial press for years treating the phenomenon as the stuff of myths and conspiracy theories.
Now, however, through the magic of this unredacted document, the public will be able to see for itself what the banks’ attitudes are not just toward the "mythical" practice of naked short selling (hint: they volubly confess to the activity, in writing), but toward regulations and laws in general.
"F*ck the compliance area – procedures, schmecedures," chirps Peter Melz, former president of Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. (a.k.a. Merrill Pro), when a subordinate worries about the company failing to comply with the rules governing short sales.
We also find out here how Wall Street professionals manipulated public opinion by buying off and/or intimidating experts in their respective fields. In one email made public in this document, a lobbyist for SIFMA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, tells a Goldman executive how to engage an expert who otherwise would go work for “our more powerful enemies,” i.e. would work with Overstock on the company’s lawsuit.
"He should be someone we can work with, especially if he sees that cooperation results in resources, both data and funding," the lobbyist writes, "while resistance results in isolation."
There are even more troubling passages, some of which should raise a few eyebrows, in light of former Goldman executive Greg Smith's recent public resignation, in which he complained that the firm routinely screwed its own clients and denigrated them (by calling them "Muppets," among other things).
Here, the plaintiff’s motion refers to an "exhibit 96,” which refers to “
an email from [Goldman executive] John Masterson that sends nonpublic data concerning customer short positions in Overstock and four other hard-to-borrow stocks to Maverick Capital, a large hedge fund that sells stocks short.”
The contents of these emails were not disputed by any of the parties. (They could hardly have done so, they were turned over in discovery and were put under seal.)
I.e. Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch didn't think much of the ban and regulations against naked short selling, and a Goldman executive sent a highly confidential list of their own clients to one of the large hedge funds that shorted Overstock.
And note that this email was from an executive at the Merrill Lynch
clearing side, i.e. their back-office operations, i.e. their normally risk-averse conscience that is supposed to keep hot-headed traders and hedge funds in check...
I doubted
@Hock1's views about naked short selling before, but I don't anymore: for example go and try to find out whether "Nasdaq Market Makers" specialist firms have
any technological limits on intraday risk taking. You won't find any such limits (which is common on other exchanges), once they pay a couple tens of millions of dollars to be members of the Nasdaq old boy's network they can literally short out of the blue even if they don't have the collateral and borrowed stock to back it up, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of positions if need to be, mark it SHO exempt, and when they move the market follows - and then they can cover, with nobody the wiser.
So please file a SEC complaint if you were a victim of these alleged illegal acts, to get it investigated by this or the next administration. Independently of that, Tesla investors might also want to seek legal advice regarding recovering the damages caused by this daylight robbery.