Gee, I'm surprised you didn't tell me to take a Midol...fly off the handle"...I don't think so. Not having a bad day at all, in fact I'm having quite a good day "market-wise" that is.
The inside information I was referring to was the knowledge of the existance of the large block of shares being held by a bankrupt brokerage. You stated that you "confirmed" your rumor by contacting the SEC, so you by your own admission state that you went short on this "rumor" and afterward verified the fact. My point is whoever brought the "rumor" public, imo, had inside information and profited from it. I wonder how many times you or anybody typically has called the SEC and checked to see if any large blocks of shares were being held in a brokerage bankruptcy situation , for stocks they own? I suspect never. Doesn't seem like the type of thing an investor would do unless they had a very strong reason, i.e. someone in a position to know tipping you off.
As far as scam artists manipulating RACE on the upside, if you go back and check, I believe you posted on this thread in response to me quite a while back that Cygnet most likely got into trouble "free-riding" the stock while it was heading up, I believe that is illegal, thus I think scam is an appropriate term. And yes, a good number of investors were "had" by these manipulators. I think the consensus on the thread is that there is agreement that the move up to 24 had more to do with this manipulation than true market forces.
As to my questioning your ethics or investment style. My criticism to your investment style was that you, by your own admission, shorted a stock on a rumor, which you laterconfirmed. This is simply a personal judgement on my part, and I do realize that many trade on rumors and make money at it. But please don't castigate investors because they waited until the rumor was verified thru the proper channels to make their investment decision. That is exactly what I did, once it was public about the Axelrod distribution, I sold most of my position. Others chose to ride it out. As to the my point regarding ethics, again, it is a matter of opinion. I'm not sure how I would act if I were given this information before it was made public, I won't say that I might have personally tried to take advantage. But I think I would have say I would draw the line at posting the "rumor" without substantiation even if I believed the
source was credible and would wait until I had full disclosure. But of course that would put everyone on a level playing field, not something you particularly want when you have a short position to protect. I consider posting rumors on public forums, no matter how convincing, unethical, and yes I realize it is done all the time. Posting rumors publicly are by definition simply an unethical means of trying to move a stock price. BTW, this applies to positive rumors, too, I think we call that "hype". Just as bad.
Finally, I think you and I can disagree about ethics and investment style knowing that we're both entitled to our own perspectives. What I consider a black and white issue, someone else may see shades of gray, and while I may strongly disagree with the opposing view, I do not see it as my responsibility to "convert" the other to my way of thinking. What "touched a nerve" in your post was the implication that the long holders that didn't act on the rumor were wrong. Yes, the chart tells us they were wrong, can't argue with that, but I guess hindsite being what it is.....bp
You'll get no disagreement from me on the necessity of reporting sales<g>. |
