Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Find the Profiteers, you find the Perpitrators -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (2)	9/15/2001 8:03:41 PM
From: Jules B. Garfunkel	Respond to of 3

Thank you Glen for alerting us to these articles. The following article from NBC News was also sent to me and I repost it here below. It is comforting to know that something is being done to look into this potential profiteering. As I said in my post, which by the way I sent on to the FBI this morning, what needs to be done now is to publicize ben Laden's “hypocritical religious fanatic practices” and make it be known how he attempts to profit from the death of not only his enemies, but his own. Jules ================================================== FBI probes European short-selling Bin Laden associates may have profited from terror attacks NBC NEWS Sept. 15 — NBC News has learned that investigators in Europe and the United States are examining whether Islamic fanatic Osama bin Laden may have financed Tuesday’s terror assault on America by stock trades in European exchanges in the days before the attacks. GERMAN OFFICIALS have asked the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission to look into whether bin Laden’s associates may have “sold short” stock in a Munich, Germany, company that holds secondary insurance on the World Trade Center. Short-selling can produce huge profits when a stock plummets because of unanticipated bad news — unanticipated, that is, by all except those involved in a conspiracy to cause that bad news. In a short sale, an investor would borrow a certain number of shares from a broker, immediately sell them, and then once the stock price had fallen, buy shares to return to the broker. Those who reaped profits from the European short sales may have deposited their profits in American banks, giving U.S. law enforcement agencies jurisdiction. The Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported Saturday that the FBI is looking into possible short-selling of the stocks of reinsurance companies in the four trading days before the terrorist attacks on the United States on Tuesday. Reinsurance firms assume risk by providing backup insurance for insurance companies. The stocks of the three reinsurance companies — AXA in France, Munich Re in Germany and Swiss Re in Switzerland — dropped 13 percent to 15 percent in the week before the attack. Analysts suggested at the time that the drops were anomalous — unexplained — since the reinsurance business was healthy and premium payments were on the way up. In fact, before the terrorist attacks, the Financial Times on Tuesday published a positive report on the industry. NBC’s Robert Windrem and Andrea Mitchell contributed to this story.