So you're implying a bear market is why people are raving mad at [firm]?
Pretty much, yeah. That and classic American schadenfreud. Hearings, trials, and other regulatory actions have followed most market busts, and if you'd asked the right people in 1997, 1998, or 1999, they'd have anticipated the same this time around.
I hope that's not what you're implying.
LOL. Well, that shows you where hope sometimes gets you.
Which part of (the definition of) fraud is escaping you?
None. As I stated previously, I believe that fraud should be pursued on all fronts - in the financial world and elsewhere - far more aggressively than it currently is.
[Y]ou buy a house and later find out it's built on a swamp, something the real estate agent didn't tell you and later incur massive expense.
I'm going to resist the efforts to chop that ridicuously oversimplified example up as they'll be called quibbling.
So yes: that sounds like fraud.
The failure to disclose all factual matters would suggest fraud to me...
To me, too. Certainly.
But instead of the word "factual," I think you'd prefer using the word "material" or "relevant." But even there, where (unlike realty) uncertainty is an intrinsic element within the landscape, there is certainly some mitigation.
Not to mention how unrealistic (however easy retrospectively, I'm compelled to mention) it is to determine "all" the relevant facts; especially considering that relevance changes constantly.
...much like the situation with [firm] and their analysts.
Really?
OK: then what was it the analysts knew that they didn't reveal?
Did they disclose all they knew about those stocks they covered? Nope.
You're stating that with certainty. What specifically do you (somehow) know they were aware of that they didn't disclose?
More importantly, jeez - don't even waste your time talking to me. Tell the NYAG as soon as you can - it seems they're negotiating a settlement without that information!
Does it seem strange to you that if there was clearly fraudulent behavior afoot the AG would even allow a settlement, what with all the careers that could be made, headlines grabbed and elections swept?
I suppose we may see typical resolution...fines of a substantial nature and other "reforms" without admitting wrongdoing.
In an AWC, one doesn't admit to or deny wrongdoing - strangely, many posters seem to forget that. But yes, I agree - the final outcome will take that form, though I'm hardly sure what a "substantial" fine would or should be.
So are you suggesting that the analysts reports are all that matter and that the emails that trashed the stocks were personal opinions that are uncorrelated to the matter?
I certainly don't think that the emails matter.
And I really don't think that the research reports matter much either, at least to the extent that clients who received the reports read - or should have read - the disclosure information on them and, perhaps, extrapolated a bit. Maybe the disclosures have to be more detailed?
With regard to noncustomers who simply read blurbs ("buy XYZ," etc) and leapt in trying to piggyback momentum or who thought they were getting something for nothing, well...what can I say? Live and learn. There's no free lunch.
If in fact you are suggesting that then it would seem clear to me that at the very least the firm was deceitful with clients.
As I said previously, since I've heard nothing yet by way of actual fraud, and since they're moving to settlement, it seems to me that the major angst out there is that analysts expressed negative opinions about the stocks they touted so absurdly in public. I don't expect employees of a firm to love their products, and I know enough to distill the voice on the phone, the words in the article, or the flash in the commercial as the marketing that they are.
I certainly don't think there's a crime in that, nor do I see how one might possibly regulate it.
LP. |
