Mark McHugh

WaMu Shows, Again, Smart Money Can Be Wrong

Insiderman,

You probably should submit your comments as an article to SA. You're right, this does not pass the smell test (little does these days).

Please consider seeking a bigger audience for this information. The mainstream media is running a thousand different directions right now, and that's the best time for crooks to loot.

The SEC's Envious of a Powerful Fed

hear, hear Horatio!

The SEC is not useless (quite the contrary), but it will remain useless as long as Cox is in charge. The only question I want congress to ask him is, "why are you still here?"

Bye-bye, Chris, bye-bye

The SEC's 'Sacred Cow' List: Where Are WaMu and Wachovia?

thanks all. BIG THANKS to gosailing and Greybeard. I completely missed the meaning of "primary dealers" in the statement (I never even think about government securities), but that is the 'sacred cow' list. Allianz is Dresdner Kleinwort, and Royal Bank is Greenwich Capital. Cantor Fitzgerald is private, and Bear Stearns will be absorbed into Lehman. I must concede the LBMA connection becomes a secondary footnote.

I still think the question, "what does this mean?", is valid. I detest the selective enforcement of rules and was puzzled, to say the least, by the list. Maybe we should be expecting turmoil in the US goverment securities market.

Shabba - I collected my short interest data from shortsqueeze.com and used google finance for some of the shares outstanding data (if it was missing at shortsqueeze). Many financials have very large short interest (NCC- 21%, for example). The point I was trying to make was the companies on that list don't have large short interest (excepting FRE, FNM & LEH). I couldn't tell you how accurate the information provided is, or how short interest from other exchanges is reflected on ours, if at all. But, from the info I can get, it certainly doesn't seem like the companies are under siege on our exchanges and that's all the SEC controls. So, why are they concerned?

In both investing and life, I believe that those "weird little things" often turn out to be significant in hindsight, and if you can decipher them sooner rather than later, you'll be way better off. This may be one of those things. Plus, I can't resist a good conspiracy theory.

Thanks again all, for sharing your insight.