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To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (126305)	9/29/2001 9:56:42 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

Jim, That's why they need to investigate. It may have been the Bass Brothers protecting themselves against margin calls, or something else legitimate, but it sure looks suspicious. I know that I have often been questioned about my options trading back when I was doing the big trades, so they have the means to find out who was doing the trades. If nothing else, they can clobber the brokers for "not knowing their clients." Of course, I say that as a guy who has one of the most eclectic books in the business. <g>

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (126305)	9/29/2001 11:47:24 AM
From: yard_man	Respond to of 436258

I agree with KT -- it should be looked at. The thrust of the article I printed was that an initial look had been taken ... large volume hitherto unseen always "looks" suspicous, but doesn't always mean inside info.

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (126305)	9/29/2001 1:22:37 PM
From: Mark Adams	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

From jasmts.com (trial membership may be required) Wednesday. OPEC met today and faces an unusual task. The price of oil is dropping quickly, which in the past was met by cutting off supplies to increase the price. However as the world’s economies continue to weaken, any increase in price would slow economies even more. After the terrorist’s attack one would have expected the price of oil to explode on fears that the supply would be reduced. However the opposite has occurred, which is a clear indication that the demand around the world is weakening so fast that it now outweighs fears of shortage of supply. There is little doubt that someone, probably the terrorists, profited handsomely by purchasing large numbers of put contracts on airline stock on September 10th. The paper trail that usually is followed to determine the offender is quickly disappearing into the murky depths of banks in third world countries. However, we can only hope the terrorists planned to profit from an expected rise in crude and had purchased an equal number of calls in that commodity.

To: James F. Hopkins who wrote (126305)	9/29/2001 5:44:48 PM
From: John Graybill	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

In all seriousness, I have little faith that our SEC would be able to make a case against a terrorist who did anything more "sneaky" than open an account a week before the incident make a six-figure trade, and close the account. I'm not saying that it would be hard to make a case, I'm saying that our SEC isn't up to it. How many cases worth more than $100,000 or so -- real cases, not 15-year-olds or blatant penny-stock fraud -- of insider trading and option scams has the SEC brought during the entire mania? Less than a dozen, I'm certain of that, and if I were betting money, I'd bet on less than five. And I think only one or two of those required more investigative know-how than simply finding the list of employees. Most of us here are familiar with Fleck's tales of de facto market manipulation on market swoons via the standard practice of massive selling of put options. And on the Micron thread back in '98 and '99, for another example, we saw so many expiration-week examples of multi-thousand out-of-the-money call option buys immediately preceding a huge upgrade that we talked about nominating the "SEC Contact of the Month" to complain about it. In these cases, not a thing was ever done. In the first case, "We were selling those calls for a client, it's just a coincidence that the market maker had to buy stock to stabilize the price" ended any discussion, per Fleck. In the second case we simply never heard anything from the SEC, directly or indirectly.