Feds to file criminal charges against analysts?
So Bob, did you back up the truck on this sucker, when in hit $.33/share in Afterhours trading the other day, after being dumped from not the Russell 1000 or 2000...but the 3000? I had indicated that was likely to happen, in post #27270 way back June 18. And the stock has only closed above $1 just three times since May 3rd. It must me on the Nasdaq delisiting warning list by now, having not even hit the $1 minimum "intraday" since May 21 (36 days ago).
It seems that apparently Wall Street now not only places absolutely ZERO value on this company's entire seemingly mish-mash unfocused business model (that may now appear to many "investors" as being from day one a poorly conceived, poorly managed, poorly executed, and an extremely ill-timed business plan)...but Wall Street now also seemingly actually values the company to be WORTH LESS than 1/2 of what the company purportedly "claims" to have in ALL their cash and cash-like "assets", all of which once belonged to Paul Allen (completely excluding their technology, patents, human assets, and of course the infamous "intangibles")...which would include ALL their cash (and cash equivalents), and ALL their marketable securities, as well as ALL their long & short term "investments."
In other words, if the company just completely closed up shop tomorrow, liquidated all their "assets," and distributed the proceeds to the shareholders, they would get over TWICE per share in value, then the shareholders now hold in the stock's "paper" value of 46 pennies per share. Just amazing! And perhaps they'd even get a little more, if the company could manage to "sell" ANY of the their numerous "technologies," such as perhaps the single most valuable profit-making part of their business (that they got from GNET)... Authorize.net. Also, I'm sure they could get a few bucks for Silicon Investor as well, and perhaps a few bucks for the search engines they also got from GNET. But IMVHO that's about it, as most of the rest of this company now seems to me to be just a completely worthless money-losing house of cards, based mostly on smoke-and-mirrors hype, lead by a guy whose sterling reputation with investors, previous employees, previous executives, previous "analysts," and Wall Street is...well I'm sure you know.
And things might start getting really interesting, "sooner rather than later." "Criminal" charges make it an all new ball game for the DotBomb era in America. I'd bet good ole Henry Blodget sure wishes he could take back some of his (allegedly) completely phony "strong buy" ratings...like the ones he kept giving INSP, while allegedly calling it "A Piece of Junk" run by a "Sleazebag" for a CEO, in his private e-mails. I'd guess that before this little game is finally played out in many future "criminal" prosecutions, more that a few impartial (?) "analysts" (yeah right!) and the "insiders" of many companies will end up seeing the "inside" of a jail cell. Perhaps Henry will end up with LOTS of spare time on his hands, to finish the "final" revisions to that new book he's been working on...or perhaps he'll just "flip," and become a government witness, and then quietly slip away into the "witness protection program." <g>
And whatever Martha Stewart may or may not have done is absolutely a teeny tiny drop in the bucket compared to the apparent massive large-scale fraud scams some of these allegedly "respectable" guys were perpetuating on Wall Street and the investing public...for years and years, just to get they greedy hands on a few extra bucks, by their blatantly arrogant criminal deceptions, outright fraud, unbelievably flagrant lies, and of course the good old tried-and-true "cooking the books."
And then there's the CEO's and other misc. "insiders" of many companies who rapidly spread throughout the land the insipid fast-spreading DotCON era greed-based and previously un-named diseases like Enronitis or WorldComitis or InCloneitis or Andersenitis or Adelphiaitis...or perhaps another one to be named at a later date by the Hagens-Berman law firm...but that's another story...for yet another day. ;)
story.news.yahoo.com
NY Post:
Prosecutors to Criminally Charge Analysts
Tue Jul 2, 9:15 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors are expected to make criminal charges against some former Internet analysts as early as next week, according to a report in the New York Post.
Citing sources familiar with the investigation, the report in the newspaper's online edition said that although it is unclear who might be charged, possible targets include Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc. former analyst Henry Blodget as well as others who were the targets of a lawsuit brought recently by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
A Merrill Lynch spokesman did not immediately return calls for comment.
Officials with the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York could not be reached immediately for comment.
Merrill in May had agreed to pay $100 million to settle charges brought by Spitzer that the No. 1 U.S. brokerage had misled investors by tailoring its research to please investment banking clients. |
