Quote from Standard Oil:
Nonsense
Bernie Madoff is a criminal but hedge funds talking about "business" is as legal as me telling you that I think there maybe an analyst out there that doesn't like Microsoft this quarter.
Another analogy would be the equivalent of calling a lawyer a criminal because he defends a guilty client.
When did America turn into such a socialist country?
Peoples attitudes these days are really very disturbing!
YOU COMPLETELY MISS THE POINT. THE TYPE OF TRADING DONE BY THESE HEDGE FUNDS WAS NOT LEGIT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
THEY COVERED THEIR POSITION ON THE REPORT !!!
this proves that they deliberately used the report and the analysts to make a quick gain on a short position.
I they had been short the stock for weeks because of their own research , if they didn' t contribute to the analyst research (collude with him to create a negative report ) or if they had kept the short position on , they would not be guilty of any wrongdoing but in this case , it seems they set up everything from A to Z . That's not trading it's cheating , trading on privileged information. It should be illegal and they should be fined, investigated, shut down , barred from the business and maybe even sent to jail if that was their modus operandi.