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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (10390)	9/5/2002 12:23:03 AM
From: StockDung	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

Top 10 Investment Scams(click to listen) investorcanada.com

To: SiouxPal who wrote (10390)	9/13/2002 12:50:56 AM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 19428

Merrill Analyst, Tyco's Kozlowski Exchanged Gifts (Correct) By Philip Boroff Merrill Analyst, Tyco's Kozlowski Exchanged Gifts (Correct) (Corrects typographical error in fourth paragraph.) New York, Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Prosecutors pursuing fraud charges against former Tyco International Ltd. Chief Executive Dennis Kozlowski found the executive exchanged gifts worth thousands of dollars with former Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Phua Young, a person familiar with the investigation said. Young, who was fired in April for sending out unauthorized reports on Tyco, wasn't named in the criminal indictment of Kozlowski today. The indictment cited ``an analyst'' at a ``large securities broker,'' which the person familiar with the probe said was Young. ``The gifts certainly put into question the analyst's objectivity, whether he was giving independent advice or was being paid,'' said Alan Bromberg, a law professor with Southern Methodist University who isn't involved with case. ``Whether there is anything illegal about it is a tougher question.'' Kozlowski and ex-Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz were charged today with looting Tyco and running a stock swindle that made them more than $600 million. The indictment said Kozlowski persuaded the unnamed firm to replace the analyst covering Tyco with someone with a more favorable outlook on the conglomerate, the world's biggest maker of electrical connectors. Young was hired in August 1999 from Lehman Brothers to cover Tyco to let Jeanne Terrile focus on other companies. Young maintained a ``buy'' or equivalent rating on Tyco from that time until he was dismissed in April. Tyco's shares had tumbled 70 percent year-to-date by the time he was fired. A message left for Young at a New Jersey residence was returned by his lawyer, Edward Little. The extent of gift giving was exaggerated, he said. Little wasn't more specific. ``The allegation that Phua Young replaced the other analyst because he's regarded as more friendly to Tyco is ridiculous,'' said Little. ``That means nothing in terms of whatever case the Manhattan district attorney's office has chosen to pursue.'' Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau declined to name the analyst or the firm. Merrill Investigations Merrill prohibits analysts from receiving gifts worth thousands of dollars, said spokesman Bill Halldin. ``During Young's employment, we have no knowledge of any such violations of Merrill Lynch's policies.'' Mark Herr, another spokesman for Merrill, said the largest securities firm by number of brokers hired Young because he was ranked as the leading analyst in his sector in Institutional Investor magazine's annual analyst survey. Merrill Lynch has been the target of regulators' investigations all year. In May, Merrill agreed to pay $100 million and change some policies to settle charges its research analysts published favorable ratings to help win and retain investment-banking business. Banking Relationship Prior to Young's firing, Merrill last provided investment- banking advice to Tyco on the company's planned purchase of C.R. Bard Inc. The $3.2 billion acquisition was canceled after Tyco announced its plan to split into four companies in January. The breakup was later revised. Lawyers for Kozlowski, Swartz and former Tyco General Counsel Mark Belnick, who was indicted for allegedly falsifying records, denied the charges. Merrill, also the biggest securities firm by capital, is among the firms investigated by the Senate permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is looking into whether financial companies helped now-bankrupt Enron Corp. hide debt through partnerships and phony sales. The securities firm also found itself in the middle of an investigation into alleged insider trading by Martha Stewart, chief executive officer of Martha Stewart Omnimedia Inc. Peter Bacanovic, Stewart's Merrill broker, may have had nonpublic information regarding ImClone Inc. that caused him to advise the homemaking celebrity to sell her stake in the biotechnology company, Congressional investigators have said. Merrill has placed Bacanovic and his assistant on administrative leave and has said it is cooperating with investigators.

To: SiouxPal who wrote (10390)	9/13/2002 12:53:34 AM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 19428

Morgan Stanley tech fund sued over stock picks By James Paton NEW YORK, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Disgruntled investors are going after Wall Street once again, this time accusing a high-tech mutual fund of investment bank Morgan Stanley <MWD.N> of making biased stock picks. Recent lawsuits allege the Morgan Stanley Technology Fund <TEKAX.O> was influenced to buy and hold stocks of companies that delivered huge investment banking fees -- or could potentially bring big business -- to the investment bank. Morgan Stanley strongly denied the allegations, made in lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Wall Street firms have come under more fire from Congress and regulators on whether their analysts issued overly rosy and misleading research on stocks in an effort to keep investment banking clients happy. Merrill Lynch & Co. <MER.N> in June agreed to pay $100 million and overhaul its research to settle charges by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that the firm misled investors by issuing exceedingly bullish stock recommendations while its analysts disparaged some of those stocks in private. According to the lawsuits, the Morgan Stanley fund followed the biased recommendations of the firm's analysts -- decisions that have cost shareholders millions of dollars since the portfolio's October 2000 inception. The fund lost 48 percent in 2001 and is down another 50 percent so far in 2002. "I think it's a fiction to think that the management of the fund is somehow distinct from the other divisions of Morgan Stanley," said Fred Isquith, a partner in Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, one of the law firms representing plaintiffs in the litigation. "They all work ultimately for the same boss." The suits claim the tech fund failed to disclose that the firm had investment banking ties with a number of companies -- such as Cisco Systems <CSCO.O> and Broadcom Corp. <BRCM.O> -- whose stocks were part of the portfolio, and failed to reveal that those links could affect the fund's buy or sell calls. Most tech funds have tumbled in the past couple of years, some farther than the Morgan Stanley fund, whose assets have fallen to $323 million. The firms' tech fund, managed by Alex Umansky and Dennis Lynch, fared worse than 78 percent of its rivals over the past 12 months, according to research firm Morningstar Inc. Morgan Stanley strongly denied claims its fund managers are under any pressure to favor stocks of banking clients. "The claims have no merit," said Bret Gallaway, a Morgan Stanley spokesman. "The fund managers are thorough and objective and they pick stocks for their funds based only on the merits. "This is a transparent attempt to cash in on the general decline in tech stocks," he added. Wolf Haldenstein, well known for its class-action litigation, announced its suit last month, and other law firms have filed similar suits in recent weeks. A previous Wolf Haldenstein suit against Morgan Stanley, like others, was unsuccessful. That suit alleged that Morgan analyst Mary Meeker, the star stock analyst once known as the "Queen of the 'Net," gave inflated ratings to companies in order to generate future investment-banking business for her firm. A U.S. federal judge last year dismissed the claims, brought on behalf of shareholders of Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O> and eBay Inc. <EBAY.O>, calling them "gross and unrestrained." Suing mutual funds is difficult because risk, and losses, are an inherent part of investing. Still, given the climate of skepticism toward Wall Street research, the investment banks offering portfolios might have to brace for more litigation. "People in the industry should be appropriately worried because bringing a lawsuit is easy, and clearly the stories about appearance of late haven't been very good for Wall Street," said Geoff Bobroff, a fund industry consultant. "It's highly possible we'll see others brought." 09/12/02 18:31 ET

To: SiouxPal who wrote (10390)	9/13/2002 12:25:44 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 19428

Porn firm makes bid for Napster By Luisa Beltran, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 6:19 PM ET Sept. 12, 2002 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- In the latest twist to the fate of once- powerful Napster Inc., an adult entertainment company made an offer late Thursday to acquire Napster's trademark and domain name. Barcelona, Spain-based Private Media Group Inc. (PRVT: news, chart, profile) bid 1 million shares of its common stock, or around $2.41 million. The transaction, if accepted by Napster, is subject to terms and conditions, including approval by the court overseeing the file-sharing company's bankruptcy. Private Media shares lost 4.3 percent, or 11 cents, to close at $2.41 No further financial details were available. Private Media -- which produces videos and magazines showing explicit sex and operates X-rated Web sites -- said it plans to create an environment that would allow consumers to share adult content for free. Last week, a Delaware bankruptcy judge rejected the sale of Napster to Bertelsmann AG. Due to the judge's decision, Napster said it would likely be forced to liquidate its assets and convert to Chapter 7 protection, where the court appoints a trustee to sell the company's assets. Redwood, Calif.-based Napster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June and has been offline for about a year. Luisa Beltran is a reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com in New York.

To: SiouxPal who wrote (10390)	9/24/2002 1:55:01 PM
From: StockDung	Respond to of 19428

WA consumers warned of latest scam Western Australians are being warned about a scam promising to deliver sexual pleasure within a week and the power to earn thousands of dollars a day. The Department of Consumer and Employment Protection says a publishing company in Las Vegas in the United States is targeting Western Australian consumers. The department says a mass produced memo from publishing company Neo-Tech is being sent to people along with letters of endorsement from anonymous television personalities. The offer guarantees sexual pleasure within a week, regardless of physical looks, and relief from incompetence, illness and allergies. The department is urging people to remember that if an offer sounds too good to be true, then it usually is. 09/23/2002 20:50 AEST © 2002 Australian Broadcasting Corporation.