More Evidence of Sirius Stock Manipulation 166 comments
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All I can say is, WOW! What a day for the overall markets. I was in meetings for most of the day, and was quite surprised as I sat at my computer to see that Sirius XM (SIRI) was trading above 1.00! Wow!
I should have stayed in the final meeting longer, because my glee quickly diminished as I watched in horror the sharp decline that preceded the close. I witnessed first hand the blatant manipulation of the stock’s price, as it was again taken below the magical 1.00 mark. It is so clear to me that certain powers are intent to keep Sirius XM below a dollar in the hopes of creating distress in the marketplace and further fear mongering of their delisting rumors.
It began at 3:30 p.m. One half hour before the close. On a rather low volume day, the final half hour of trading brought with it the following trades (in shares): 804,944, 243,551, 201,454, 406,500, 263,912, 584,292, 184,101, 378,551, 182,535, 157,934, 316,240, 374,583, 384,576, 480,653, 440,201, 152,134, 1,208,522, 931,328 for a grand total of nearly 8 million shares.
It seems odd to me in light of the fact that not a single 100 share trade was executed. No 1000 share trades. No 10,000 share trades. No my friends, in the final half hour of trading, these orders were manipulated at the expense of the small trader. The market for Sirius XM retail investors closed Thursday at 3:30 p.m.. The after-hours session brought with it 3 more examples of stock manipulation. 3 blocks meant to bid the price down of 566,644 shares, 5,333,333 shares and 7,862,966 shares. Out the 14 million shares traded in the extended session at the time of my writing this article, nearly all of them came from these three trades.
Having successfully kept the stock under a dollar for the close, the retail investor was again permitted to buy and sell in the late session. So where is the SEC in all of this? I wish I knew. And perhaps we should all bring this to the attention of the SEC. While we’re at it, it seems Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of N.Y. is interested in bringing these market manipulators to justice. I will post the links in the SiriusBuzz forums for anyone who wishes to file a complaint as I believe there is strength in numbers, and that together we CAN make a difference.
Position: Long SIRI
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This article has 166 comments:
Hope this Christams hottest selling gift item - SIRI XM Radio
I saw the same thing yesterday and posted it on your Don't Believe Everything Your Hear article. The shares you refer to were pumped in via ECN--I was watching LVL 2 real-time and the Market Makers were over-ridden while this heavy flood came in with the resistance. My post from yesterday:
Since this is my fist day back on RT LVL2 in a while, it was the first chance to watch the trading patterns. At about 3:15, some heavy ECN (Electronic Communication Network--which is where a lot of institutional trading comes from) action came in and over-rode the MM's, sending in the resistance at $1.02 and driving th price back down. Bid and Ask sizes were huge--75K, 100K, 300K. The MM's seemed to be locked out for a few minutes. The very last trade eeked out the .009 gain for today. A second before that it was down @ .92 or a loss for the day. As relmor says, this is all they have to do to make the stock do what they want any given day with all of those extra shares in the float. So, it's more than just shorting, it's manpulation at will. Interestingly, THE MOST ACTIVE MM today (Bid and Ask) was NSDQ (like stocks, MM's list as call letters)...I looked them up and that symbol is Nasdaq Execution Services. Hmmmm. They had many of the largest block sizes on both sides. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see the exact flow of all the extra shares. Overall though, SIRI held their own today nicely--considering the amount of people who wish they were @ .50 today instead of .949.
I saw the same thing and posted it yesterday on your Don't Believe Everything You Hear About Sirius article. The flood of shares seemed to come through the ECN--I was watching LVL 2 Real-time and the Market Makers appeared to be blocked as their Bid and Ask numbers were not registering on tbe board at all. As you say, when that flood came in, the resistance was set up and tanked the stock. Below was my post from yesterday:
Since this is my first day back on RT LVL2 in a while, it was the first chance to watch the trading patterns. At about 3:15, some heavy ECN (Electronic Communication Network--which is where a lot of institutional trading comes from) action came in and over-rode the MM's, sending in the resistance at $1.02 and driving the price back down. Bid and Ask sizes were huge--75K, 100K, 300K. The MM's seemed to be locked out for a few minutes. The very last trade eeked out the .009 gain for today. A second before that it was down @ .92 or a loss for the day. As relmor says, this is all they have to do to make the stock do what they want any given day with all of those extra shares in the float. So, it's more than just shorting, it's manpulation at will. Interestingly, THE MOST ACTIVE MM today (Bid and Ask) was NSDQ (like stocks, MM's list as call letters)...I looked them up and that symbol is Nasdaq Execution Services. Hmmmm. They had many of the largest block sizes on both sides. I would love to be a fly on the wall to see the exact flow of all the extra shares. Overall though, SIRI held their own today nicely--considering the amount of people who wish they were @ .50 today instead of .949.
SIRI Bid/Ask 9:05A 1.08/1.09 Vol 1,027,235
I can't wait until SIRI rehydrates back into the 2's and all the disblievers eat their....
Bid/Ask 1.10/1.11 !! Can you say cover those shorts!!!
Scot' Slant
Confirmed by today's action so far. Right at the open the Bid/Ask crashed from 1.08/1.09 to 1.00/1.01 and now their dicking around again under a buck. These guys refuse to give up. They will keep pounding down until ALL is lost for them. Like Brandon said, and as it's bearing out today--they DON'T WANT SIRI over a buck and they are fighting until the death to prevent it. I used to day trade and I can't recall this tough a battle at the dollar mark--usually if you gain that mark after being under, the shorts retreat back to their next point of resistance defense over a dollar--usually 1.15 - 1.20. I guess we'll just have to see who wins the battle of the buck today. The assumption is if they DO make it clearly over, it should take off from there higher into the next range...
Wow...10:17A...
MM's locked out as they were heading up--their Bid/Ask 1.02/1.03...Bid/Ask on the board 1.00/1.01 while 100K. 200K, 300K blocks roll in....supressing the move.
10:23A MM's finally lower their Bid/Ask to match board...
10:26A starting to tank @ .97, .96
Bid/Ask sizes back to normal matching MM's. Wow...total manipulation from the nether world....
Invesitgation in order....
Sirius bothers me particularly because, as we noted on this blog, the FCC did the company a big disservice by over-regulating their merger and holding things up for over a year. Then we had the SEC looking the other way while vultures attack the new company and rip it to pieces.
Sadly, Sirius is just one example of the hundreds of companies that were murdered in the last couple of years by these practices. Now that the SEC is starting to wake up, Sirius and other heavily shorted stock might be in line to rebound.
Good article CAC...
So now Bid/Ask is locked at this bs of .9715/.9716 and flat-lined there. We are totally being f'd in the arse...
Who can help us expose these a-holes?
"commercial" that interrupts programming .........Coke would pay a million dollars a week , just to have Howard say " I like Coca-Cola " twice a day
I think it's probably true that they will pay a higher rate given their CCC credit rating (and how tight credit is today--not that it's unavailable, just tight and lending institutions are taking advantage of having the upper hand, like the ups and downs of the mortgage market for instance)...how high...good question. I would think there's a good chance they could find something a little lower than the reported 14%. But personally, I think that part will for the short-term be semi-irrelevant since it's mainly SIRI alleviating the default potential that's key. Having a higher interest rate does nothing to their true growth story--which they will easliy prove in the coming Q's.
What starts to worry me now though is with this clear supression manipulation, will the stock even be free to move up when Mel announces the news. I hope so but I gues we'll just have to see. With all analyst targets over $2, the stock could do that in a few days given that announcement and classic Wall Street euphoria (given normal trading conditions). The question is will 'they' allow that to happen (or maybe the better question is when).
2. Re-financing: Refinance the debt. With the excitement generated by the new American Financial Plan and new money freed up by this plan, now is the time to act to give us your public plan to refinance. You personnally need to get the government to attack naked short sellers of our stock. You need to get investors (like the Donald) to invest in this stock.
NOW is the time to act Mel. DON'T waste this opportunity to act. You are a WINNER. Annihilate those betting against us. Go Dawgs, Beat Arizona State.
BTH
Still shorting??
With the existing radios, give them away for free. This would get millions of subscribers and get your old radios off the market.
I think it's a clear case of the good 'ol boy network looking out for each other. GS is back up 21 bucks. A good company like SIRI, after doing a righteous deal, with a great product and service for consumers is punished and trading in the ten-thousandth decimals all day?? Wow. What's wrong with that picture? The insult about this is NO STOCK i've ever seen except this one, would trade in ten-thousandth decimals at .98...for hours or days on end!!!!! Total bs. That practice is usually only for stocks that fall below .80, .70, .60, .50....
We know GS is a culprit in this since they are tied to convertible deal, but also as cos mentioned MS and UBS are in the mix. So all looking out to protect each other so they don't lose making millions of dollars at SIRI's (and our) expense. Interestingly UBS is a MM but they are not one of the most active. Out of the entire book of looks like 31 MM's, there are only a handful that are active. They are (beside NSDQ), NAS, CIN, PSE (they are Pacific Exchange out of San Fran), CSE, JANY (Janney Montgomery Scott) and the extremely evil NITE (Knight Equity). Everyone else is just sitting there over a buck waiting apparently while these guys ten-thousandth themselves to death.
One of the key things to remember about Market Makers is, it's their responsibility to 'make the market', in other words, keep it trading at all cost. Not only do they represent other clients and brokerages but they can also buy and sell on you themselves. The worst part is they all participate on BOTH sides of the trade Bid AND Ask--so you can see how incestuous Wall Street is. But it looks to me like today they were instructed to keep the price under a buck--which is even right now so easy to see as the Bid/Ask is .9968/.9969 (WHAT?). But this tactic allows them to handle/fill all of the incoming orders and still stay under a buck. Total crap...
I think of all the ideas going around, I like the ads on the unit screen the best for easy revenue...
Oh this is cute. right now they are .9998/.9999 Bid /Ask...yet still won't go over a buck!!! Why? because they were told not to!!!
SpongeTech(R) Delivery Systems, Inc. Hits Grand Slam!
Thursday 09/18/2008 1:42 PM ET - Pr Newswire
SpongeTech(R) Delivery Systems, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: SPNG) is pleased to announce that this past weekend the company started an aggressive marketing campaign utilizing the combined values of Howard Stern, Chris Russo, and NASCAR Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. As a result of this, coupled with our aggressive TV advertising, SpongeTech(R) has booked in the past five days over $1,000,000 in gross internet sales. We are extremely excited about how we are positioning and marketing our product, and feel very strongly that we are on our way to another record quarter. This, combined with our on hand orders that will be shipped this year, could bring our total revenue in excess of $35,000,000, with a proportionate EBITDA to last year's P/L.
Our Stock Buyback
With such a volatile stock market comes tremendous opportunity. In light of that, coupled with the change in the SEC shorting rules, the Board has decided to increase our corporate stock buyback in the open market from 25,000,000 shares to 50,000,000 shares effective immediately. We have to date purchased in the open market over 10,000,000 shares thus leaving 40,000,000 more shares to buy. We will continue to communicate with our shareholders, and we thank you all for your support.
The stock just crept over a buck and what else?? In comes the phantom shares!!! Blocks of 100K, 200K, 300K!!!! What control!!!! Let's see what happens next...duh!! back down to .9931/.9932 Bid/Ask!!!
Brandon are you watching this??
Bill Kurtis just discovered the internet! (if you've seen the spots)...lol
Though you're right about the gov not giving a rats ass, it still sucks being treated like shit and manipulated.
Btw...two more ticks just above a buck, two more beat-backs.
On Sep 19 12:48 PM ari d k wrote:
> Obama is giving a talk in Miami now, maybe this will help the price
> of the stock today to close over a buck. lol lol
Is there only one MM for Sirius? Or are there multiple MMs? Do MM's work for banks? Brokerage houses? Independent? This is a TRAVESTY. Look at the one day chart!!!
Your insight is greatly appreciated!
The MM depth for any stock is called it's book and the amount of makers in the book can vary--really depending on its popularity or interest from each MM. As I said before, a MM serves multiple functions for the market..besides ensuring the stock keeps trading, it both fulfills orders for different brokerages but AND it can try to make money for itself (which I think sucks and which breaks something known on Wall Street as the Chinese Wall--where one company plays against itself, thereby trying to monopolize)--so that means it also buys and sells shares. It's supposed to always try to get the highrst bid or the lowest ask for it's clients--doesn't always happen though because they play favorites of different brokers (or themselves!!). There are only a set number of MM's that are sanctioned by the SEC and generally many stocks have an average of 20 -30 in the book at once. Right now SIRI has 31 and as they sit in the book, they all set the prices they are willing to buy and sell stock that they own (supposedly lol!) and are lined up accordingly in a list with the highest bid and lowest ask at the top of the list. Mostly MM's are security/equity companies rather than banks. Some MM's are up and up just doing their job and some like NITE have agendas, esp to take your money--the guy on main street--by hook or crook. Hope that helps.
Clarifying...
"Right now SIRI has 31 and as they sit in the book, they all set the prices they are willing to buy and sell stock that they own (supposedly lol!) and are lined up accordingly in a list with the highest bid and lowest ask at the top of the list."
They set the prices according to not only that they own but also as the orders they represent. i.e... if you wanted to buy 1000 shares of Siri @.99...you place with your broker..if your broker happens to be a MM (a few are) it will fill your order in the market...if not, your broker sends your order to the MM they have a relationship with and then the MM attempts to fill your order. As you know, if it's a market day order, the MM will get the going price at the time...if you set up a limit order, he will wait for that EXACT price you set with your broker...
Oh look we've actually held a dollar fro 5 minutes....nope spoke too soon...
Enjoy your static and 404 errors. I'll be listening to best of Stern.
I'm not a short investor but I'm pretty sure there are no limits at what price a stock can be shorted. The big 'if' is locating the borrowed shares at any given price and the lower the stock price goes, the harder it might be to locate the shares to short.
Shares Short 231,922,300
Short Percent of Float 7.39 %
Short Interest - Prior 209,124,300
Short % Increase / Decrease 10.90 %
It's going up again
Just spoke to my broker, you are correct...but it's actually $4 under which you cannot short because they are non marginable under that. Good to know...Another disadvantage to the little guy (not that I short anyway but for those that would if they could) because you know larger institutions are in there shorting anytime...
At the last minute they snuck in a quick trade @ 1.00 just before the bell--bid/ask were in the .99's. Woo hooo...HEADLINE: SIRI CLOSES AT A BUCK!
1. Stock appears to have bottomed @ .68 on Tuesday
2. From there, up .32 (48%) (4 day rally)
3. Lots of good rumors and Mel quotes about imminent financing deal priming the next pop
4. Shorts and float manipulators--kissing the ass of all longs
Rock on SIRI!!
When you saw it go to 1.08 that was normal trading. To get beaten back like that off no news is obvious manipulation when you see the size of the bids and asks come in. Forget 300k block, IVE SEEN 1.8 MILLION K BLOCKS. Ya right!!!! And at the exact same time someone wants to sell 1.8 million shares too, RIIIIIGHHHHHTTTTT.
To whoever said the SEC has bigger problems, I dont give a rats ass what that illegal and immoral group has problems with. Call them write them and make it very uncomfortable for them to ignore this stock.
This stock would be 3-4 by now, easy. And the mr. street.com guy, nice try. No new news, means your just a propaganda specialist, and to be ignored. If you watch level 2, which Im glad you all are doing now, you will see this obviouis bs. Not funny. I dont mind if it were actually trading at this range, but im not happy that its being manipulated in this range. It closed at 1.00 today. This resets the time for delisting. Mel has no influence on wall street? Did I hear that right? What troll said that? O contrare, mr. dummy, he has a ton of influence on wall street. The merger took forever because XM stock had to be dropped to the single digits. Sirius went that way by default. He is a wall streeter, dude. Get a clue. Hes in on the manipulation. For anyone who sold prior to now, should be furious with Sirius and Mel for allowing XM stock to drop so low and in essance taking Sirius down with it. If you watched XM trade since January, it sucked. It traded like a retarded stepsister of Sirius, never achieving a proper arbitage spread on the convert share (4.6). There were days XM would drop huge, and sirius would stay flat. So, they needed some extra emmmf, to take down sirius too(remember the stock price of XM is irrelevant upon merger). Since perceptions of the XM price were lower than Sirius, but still keeping it up, they used the ole 1-2 on us, with the analysist GS dropping his target to 1.75 and using all those 920 trade short accumulation shares to tank the stop in seconds. See, if you have the justification(BS downgrade) combined with overwhelming short interest(Mel told them we will print shares to cover you , dont worry), and the onslaught began. Keep up the shorting and negative press and bingo, you have yourselves a .68 cent stock.
:-)
R Reagan: all those 100 share trades are part of the smoke and mirrors to create the resistance at 1.00. By suddenly jacking up the bid/ask sizes to 100K, 200K, or as relmor says 1M, and jumping up to the head of the MM pack, the stock can't move ahead until those "phantom" huge orders are filled. In a normal MM book, you still see many 100 share trades but the sizes the MM's are seeking or asking are normal, 3K, 5K--so the MM easily gets filled through the demand and the next one in line moves up. In a high demand day, each MM will keep raising their price (obviously to get more for their shares) and as soon as someone buys their price, that's the new higher price. A larger number of smaller share trades are common and just means that a MM is being used by multiple broker orders. But in this case, with the float so big, there are a few MM's who (supposedly) have those shares and can, whenever they need to (in this case at the 1.00 mark) pretend they are holding massive orders. But in reality, though the demand pressure is more than the sell pressure which is what keeps the stock upticked and from taking a loss that day, it's no where near the volume what the bogus MM's say. Then because the sizes have no way in hell of being filled, the price stalls and can't move higher because the size blocks are too big for the real demand and 'never get filled completely'. So the price has no choice but to go back down because MM's are obligated to keep the trade going (up or if necessary, down)--that's part of why they exist. Today I saw about 6 MM's who kick up the bogus sizes at will--they are: NSDQ, NAS, CIN, PSE, CSE and NITE. The rest of the 31 MM's just sat there like dummies all day. With the large float, the MM's can get away with this without being invesitgated because no one will be able to prove they didn't have those bogus order volumes. These MM's have been told probably by GS to keep the price below $1 during the day. GS was probabaly cool to let the price come back up to $1 but now it's bring the heat to stop it there. Relmor, you're right, the premarket 1.08/1.09 was normal MM. If it were pre merger days, on a day like today, upticking with the Dow up 400/Nas up 50 with 1.08/1.09 in premarket, SIRI would have closed probably at 1.20 with an intraday high of 1.32. Instead they spend the whole day dicking around @ .9991 - .9999--which NEVER happens when a normal stock gets that close to a buck. Normally if the stock breaks the buck, it signals a buy and takes off from there (at least to 1.10 - 1.14) and never goes range bound at .9991 like today. It's crap.
Ya gotta have faith man! When GS gets paid off from the new financing, the gloom should lift and the stock more free to run. We gotta get them out of the way asap. You can see by todays premarket, it WANTS to run. People want in on this company and there's a ton of short covering to be done...Believe in the dog, it won't bite you...
I told my wife this not to long ago. That it is not really a loss because the assets did not crumble the houses are still there they just need a market to come back and the government can buy them then kill two birds with one stone. Not only will they have bought the homes for a big discount but they will have started the market (and the housing market along with it) on its way back. Which basically improves their investment.
sl62: Indeed if this is such a great idea, why are people saying that the government will be on the hook for 500 billion or so? Maybe this was yet another idea of Mel Karmazin's, to drive the housing market wildy down, so he could make a killing with Hank Paulson after Paulson has left office. They will be able to use the money from the Sirius run up, to buy paper from the government at bargain prices and then resell.
(oh, that last part was satire, just for the record)
www.investopedia.com/a...
I took the siri numbers and placed them into the example
Looking into the Trailing stop, also fits into the scenario that the stock price channel is currently stuck in.
The Workings of a Trailing Stop
Purchase Price = $.97
Last Price at Time of Setting Trailing Stop = $.99
Trailing Amount = .002 per share
Immediate Effective Stop Loss Value = $.988
If the market price climbs to $1.00, your trailing stop value will also rise to $.998. If the last price now drops to $.999, your stop value will remain intact at $.998. If the price continues to drop, this time to $.9979, it will penetrate your stop level, immediately triggering a market order. Your order would be submitted based on a last price of $.9979. Assuming that the bid price was $.9979 at the time, the position would be closed at this point and price. The net gain would be .00279 cents per share less commissions.
I admit that these are fractional penny situations , but in greater numbers, this situation ran along with the Stop-Limit Order makes perfect sense of the price channel stagnation.
The current rule does allow for pre-exiting shorts to remain. These pre-existing shorts (if they're smart) are most likely covered by Sells with Stop Price orders. Either way, these orders are now getting caught with their pants down. The 799 Market Makers will not jump into the short blood bath that will soon follow.
-------Pants down-----
-----bath-------------...
-----naked shorts-----
All seems to make sense
Run Blue Dog Run!!!!!!!!!.
My mistake was not fully understanding the manipulations intent or degree of virosity. I believed the bottom was 1.82. I thought it was to get XM as cheap as possible. I was right. 1 for 2 though. What I didnt know is that GS and other banks wanted super low buyins cause Sirius was in a hurry. They arent in a hurry right now, and they have plenty of time to let the big dogs buy shares of the weak hands, and then move this stock up slowly, then down, then up, then down over time. It will get its jump, but it wont be near telegraphable, and thats why I hold. This jump will be a big one, around $1, and it will come out of the blue. The steady ups and downs can be expected, you may even find a buying panic or two. During one of these, Im out and will reevaluate this as a "growth" stock at that point, and worthy of longer term investment.
Good info...that was definitely what we were seeing in the action yesterday. By putting all those S/L's in around a buck they know they can tie it up there for a while, preventing it from going up. MS/GS's shares--and by them distributing to several different MM's, they disguise their tactics. The average investor doesn't look at LVL2 to see the block sizes that trigger or know the S/L tactic so they just think the stock doesn't go up for no reason.
RReagan: Your question has a complex answer. Investing/already being invested in SIRI at this time is not for the faint of stomach. The average investor thought the merger with XM was a great idea (and it was/is) but had no idea how it would be set up behind the scenes to get it done. Because of the FCC, Mel had to make a deal with the devil themselves (GS/MS) in order to get it done--and they stuck it to him big time (which is why he wants to stick it back to them asap with new financing). But waiting any longer would have made the deal impossible for a variety of reasons. By watching LVL2 action and due diligence research like in Baba's post, we're able to see exactly what's happening to the stock--knowledge is power. Here's where the complexity to your question comes in. First, SIRI is still considered a spec..so volitility will remain part of the equation for a while. Second, many of us told the average investor not to jump when the stock looked like it was headed to 0. It will never do that but people think it will so they jump. Too bad for all the people I know jumped once the stock went below .80 or .70. Now they look at the price on Yahoo and are pissed they got fooled--classic Wall Street fooling main street out of their money. Third, and maybe most mportant, SIRI will get past this time frame and get into smoother waters. When they do, the upside is there to realize all the positives of the merger. The stock will rehydrate and live in the 2-4 range. Then they will reverse and the stock will be a teenager or higher. By that time, maybe Q2 '09, the stock will be more based on merit of the company and not the merger deal or due convert notes. And a new level of investors will be enticed to try the company. After the split, the shorts will try to take the company back down for certain, that happens to all splits in the beginning, but if the company goes cash positive EBITDA next year lke they say, that will shut up the heavy short interest.
But for now it's a bumpy ride like heavy turbulance in a plane and all there is to do is to hang on. Like relmor says, the stock will get past this current road block eventually but no one will know when it's going to happen because it's going to happen either in the premarket or afterhours and you'll just have to be in to take the ride. That's what traders said about yesterdays NYSE action. Many pro traders missed the 400 point bounce because the whole move on most stocks happened overnight and in premarket. By the time of the open the stocks were too high for most traders to get in--they were locked out. If you invested money in SIRI for a quick return and didn't have time to wait (and are watching other stocks you could have bought go up right now while you're stuck) then you got bit. That's nothing new in the Wall Street game. If you bought in a year ago or before, then you just keep waiting, which you would do anyway even if SIRI was still at your basis. But if you got impatient and jumped, thinking you would make the money up on the next stock that appears to be moving, you are headed into a spiral of heavy losses--while you're also buying all the assholes at GS a new summer home. I don't care at what level you invest on Wall Street, it takes time to make money--all good money managers know that. It's called Time Arbitrage. But you also have to know when it's time to sell and take your profits. Many people don't understand either of these concepts because they get too caught up in the frustration of day to day or week to week activity. Again, not for the faint of stomach.
I like your satire btw...
But I heard that 500B number too, and that sounds like some heavy cash. But not to the gov who is a money god. I've stopped trying to figure out how they manage it all but the thinking on the bad paper is when the housing market comes back (and it always does and over shoots), which the consensus seems to be middle of '09 for the start of the rebound, the gov will be able to start unloading the paper for much more than it is worth right now (the collective 500B). In the mean time, they just sit on it--which they are maybe the only entity that has the time to do something like that without their "books" being scrutinized or having their credit rating dropped. They're the almighty US of A!...Now I did hear that in the first RTC (ironically set up for the S&L debacle under daddy Bush in the 80's), the gov wound up losing money overall--which then falls on We the tax payer People, but some say this time is different because it's housing. And like land, technically, you'll never lose money on housing (in the long run) because it just keeps (and always will keep) going up over time. Unless the whole world implodes one day--which who knows, it just might!!
You gotta believe in that SIRI dog man! They've bent but have not broken...as LL says, "don't call it a comeback!!"
1. Foreign funny money coming here and coverting to dollars. Nice!!
a. Ooops, theres a problem with #1. We run a trade deficit and have for years and will for many more. Ok, so more money leaves our country than comes in.
2. Get a bank loan, who charges interest.
Did you all get that? Can you do the math? Get your calculators out and do the math. Yes, thats right. You have people trying to pay back interest plus principle, with just principle(and it shrinks due to trade imbalance). Yes, thats right, its impossible. Our economy is a shell game and has been since 1971 when we went off the gold standard. Print print print............
My major funding is in gold. See you when it hits 2000. Thanks government bailout plans. OOOO, by the way, you can bank right now on future rate cuts. They will go all the way to 0. Only thing the FED has left to try to BS people into thinking the market can recover. It will work, for ever increasingly shorter amounts of time.....
You missed that I said teenager via reverse split...I wouldn't do that 1200% thing to ya...
Rlmor is right. FDR killed half the gold standard policy. When Nixon killed the last half in '71, it set our economy a sail for good and where it goes nobody knows. We're just floating without a ground and making stuff up as we go along anymore. It is whatever the Treasury says it is. Nothing is backed by anything except "full faith and credit of the U.S. government". Hence we are a CURRENCY- driven economy.
As far as the bad paper and with a grain of salt relative to the above...yes they are delinquent now but the properties are real brick and mortar with relevant value in a better market. When the floor rises, they will rise with it. As yiu say, what they are absorbing now are loans on properties under water and unaffordable by tenants. My guess is the banks (or connected service providers) will continue to service the bad loans until resolutions are reached to stablize the properties--but the actual paper will be lifted off their books). I agree there will be fees to the gov related to servicing but I don't know if those were already acccounted for in the intial numbers.
Here's how I look at it. The RTC was a necessary step to stablize the world basically. Without it, bank by bank was being unwound. They were taking down every bank. Did you see where Citi was before the big two day pop? $14, WB was down to $9 and falling... Morgan would be gone by now, Goldman would be next week (we wouldn't have cried for them) but slowly every bank maybe except BAC and JPM would be gone in bankruptcy/receivershi... there would have been a huge run from the gen pub. Nasty. So...the gov is the only option because they have time on their side. How it goes from here where the RTC is concerned, we'll just have to see. If they turn out to make some cash, better for them and We the tax payer People. If not, life will go on because there is no gold standard or reference. As said, they did this same thing for the S&L disaster and lost money in the end but saved the overall financial system. If you look at the war...our gov has FINANCED 100% of the cost of the war (which I think is now about 750B). How exactly are they gong to pay for that? No average joe really knows but apparently the gov knows how. They've probably put it on payments for 30 years! What is their collateral? That they are the US of fricking A, and the rest of the world knows if we go down, they go down with us. My other point would be that the sheer numbers shock and awe average Americans, but to the gov it's all in a days work. 1B, 10B, 500B, 1T, 5T...they just work in bigger numbers because they can. I saw a report yesterday of 'breaking news' on CNBC and it was that a bank in West Virgina had failed...with assets of 50M or something and outstanding debt of 100M. No one on the panel even cared. Those numbers are way too small at this point. They all just went, ho hum. That's where it is today.
Here are the safest investments right now, IMVHO.
1. Silver.(Upside is literally earthshatteringly possible, were talking possible 100 ounce silver in 2 years. That would be a 9 bagger right now.
2. Gold. Triple possible increase, but as a holder of value and a fighter of inflation, it is priceless. Like prepurchasing your gas, food, and energy needs now, instead of when its 15 dollars for a loaf of bread.
a. Best gold are coins, because they are recognizable worldwide, coin shops take them, and you can prove their worth. They have added value too(indian heads, etc...) Best coins are Kruggerands(widely known and excepted, hard(contain copper) and dont chip. Not 24 carot, thats why. Pandas are very soft and are not tradeable coins. Stay away from pure gold and bullion, hard to move and transport, too high of value, stay liquid.
3. Cash. Cash is king, and one day could be worth 2 to 3 times its face value. I wouldnt horde cash, as you should spend it as you make it, and I dont mean on TVs and cars, I mean on hard assets, food, water, solor panels, energy efficient appliances, gold, silver, anything that holds value, and allows you to spend less money. But always have 3 months of cash on hand in case. In the end, cash, gold and silver are king, and require no bank to access them.
Leave no coins or cash gold or silver in a safety deposit box, they can be raided, confiscated, or accidentally sold off for a number of reasons. Google this and you will find what Im talking about. Actually dont google it, MSN it, google tracks your paths.
After that, I would not trust the market if you want safe, no safe bets. Only safe banks are JP Morgan, and BofA. I will add to this list when I see proof beyond those two.
From what I know most older dated coins (gold or silver) aren't worth much more than thier current troy weight value. Unless they are EXTREMELY rare like that gold double eagle...but I think what makes that so rare is because of it being minted right at the time when FDR, who ordered all gold coins to be melted (phase 1 of abolishing the gold standard) sometime in the 30's.
But as relmor said, I guess you can never go wrong owning gold assets since it's price/worth/value in the open market is directly related to the weakness or strength of the dollar--and is usually at it's highest during major world instability. However, though it's not as unstable as stocks, because it IS traded in the marketplace, its true value is never fixed. Thats my take...
1. First news of refinancing. This jump will save whoever bought below 1.50. You might want to head out if you didnt buy this as a spec stock.
2. Q1 of 09. This will show the synergies hitting home, and that the guidance was too conservative. This will save everyone who bought under 2-2.30. Get out here if you think this wasnt a spec stock.
3. After last debt is resolved to Q1 of 10. This is the option for the true spec investor, your looking at 3-4 now, with possible overshooting going to take place. Here is where the big pay day lies. It wont last though, as reality will set in on earnings, and future growth. Economy might finally be really bad by now. I would exit here as a spec stock and reevalute company as a growth stock(it might fail that