Quote from Pekelo:
I actually read the whole thing (Pabst post), because I am waiting if it is going to rain or not. Well, the first 3/4 of it was a waste of bandwith, but then came the interesting part.
It looks like that these traders :
- got either incredibly lucky and just guessed at the right time (have you ever taken a probability class?)
- some of them were dumb, because they also bought the stocks and eventually ended up with a loss (we have to believe here without any shown evidence that both the puts and the stockbuyer were the same persons)
The commission failed to explain away a bunch of other suspicious trades (Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley), simply putting them together and saying: "all the rest was similar to the quoted and explained example."
Now here comes the double whammy! Suspicious activities didn't just happen in the US!!! :
"German central bank president Ernst Welteke later reports that a study by his bank indicates, âThere are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge,â not only in shares of heavily affected industries such as airlines and insurance companies, but also in gold and oil. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] His researchers have found âalmost irrefutable proof of insider trading.â [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] âIf you look at movements in markets before and after the attack, it makes your brow furrow. But it is extremely difficult to really verify it.â Nevertheless, he believes that âin one or the other case it will be possible to pinpoint the source.â [Fox News, 9/22/2001] Welteke reports âa fundamentally inexplicable riseâ in oil prices before the attacks [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] and then a further rise of 13 percent the day after the attacks. Gold rises nonstop for days after the attacks. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001]"
Also care to explain this:
"Mayo Shattuck III resigns, effective immediately, as head of the Alex Brown unit of Deutsche Bank. No reason is given. Some speculate later that this could have to do with the role of Deutsche Bank in the pre-9/11 purchases of put options on the stock of companies most affected by 9/11. [New York Times, 9/15/2001; Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001]"