Optionsellers.com goes bust and the apology video is painful to watch

[JSOP]

I am certainly no expert on financial law, but I do know regular law language, and specifically contract law.

If the guy said you could lose all your money + more as I trade your money by selling covered calls/puts, and then goes and loses it all by selling uncovered call/puts, that is a breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty I guess. But the breach of contract alone would be enough to get any civil judge to decide in favor of plaintiff. How it works in a mess like this I do not know.

The key is to get him in criminal court so his personal assets can be used to recover the investment losses for his clients. There is no use holding him liable in civil court, there is nothing in the company to pay back the victims as everything is liquidated.

 

[Overnight]

The key is get him in criminal court so his personal assets can be used to recover the investment losses for his clients. There is no use holding him liable in civil court, there is nothing in the company to pay back the victims as everything is liquidated.

I used civil court only as an example of why a judge would rule in favor of plaintiff if said plaintiff sued for breach of contract, as I studied only civil cases in the time I was digging into contract law. I have zero knowledge of how this would go down in a criminal proceeding, as that is a different animal altogether.

 

[RedDuke]

The key is get him in criminal court so his personal assets can be used to recover the investment losses for his clients. There is no use holding him liable in civil court, there is nothing in the company to pay back the victims as everything is liquidated.

Did he do anything that is not in d doc? I assume all of his clients were getting daily statement. They saw all positions every day. If all Is are dotted he will get out unscathed.

 

[Overnight]

...They saw all positions every day. If all Is are dotted he will get out unscathed.

Probably not, because the Ts were not crossed concomitantly.

 

[JSOP]

Well, there are a few niggles with the numbers here.

1., 500K * 290 is $145 million, pretty much his quoted loss figure. He is stating, basically, that every account had only $500K in open trade equity, and the rest was sitting in cash.

2.. If that were true, how could he then say that every account lost every penny, because certainly some accounts had a million or more? Did he just siphon off a lot of the client's idle monies and claim business expenses with it, like trips to Australia to watch sunsets with his clients? To buy his watch?

Think there will be a criminal investigation of this? Hell, the SEC has initiated them for far lesser crimes. If there is, maybe the truth will be known.

Woo look at the media swooning in, 3 more major publications are publishing the stories now:

New York Post: https://nypost.com/2018/11/20/tearful-hedgie-apologizes-on-video-for-losing-clients-money/

Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/b7c525f6-ec44-11e8-89c8-d36339d835c0

Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/energy...nal-video-to-options-firms-clients-1542709800

According to Financial Times, FC Stone is not saying anything about debit balance stating that the client accounts were well-collateralized? That's weird. He clearly stated in emails and updates to clients that there are debit balances and they need to pay them. So why's FC Stone's story different here? Are they saying this because they are afraid of being sued for improper handling and monitoring of client accounts of excess margin and not auto-liquidating the positions sooner to avoid larger margin shortfalls? I know Chapman& Albin that's taken on the case is suing FC Stone as well. You never know...

I don't believe the loss is just $150 million, it's larger than that. Even if the average account size is $1 million, for 290 accounts, the loss is still $290 million. In the video, he said all of the accounts are wiped out. FC Stone has liquidated all of the positions. The loss is definitely larger than $150 million unless he was not investing all of their money deposited with him like you said but then if that's the case, there shouldn't be debit balances. Where did the debit balance come from? Something does not add up. I guess we will know in the upcoming court documents.

And I hope his watch is included in the eventual settlement. I mean, that was bad taste.

LOL Everybody hates his watch. This is why you hire image consultants I guess when you want to make important public statements like this. God, this is giving Rolex such a bad name.

 

[RedDuke]

Probably not, because the Ts were not crossed concomitantly.

My main point is was anything done that was not disclosed in d doc? If not, there is no case. Many people throw here fiduciary responsibility without realizing that CTAs operate under different rules. CTA must execute according to D doc, and if it was done this way, there is really no case.

 

[JSOP]

I used civil court only as an example of why a judge would rule in favor of plaintiff if said plaintiff sued for breach of contract, as I studied only civil cases in the time I was digging into contract law. I have zero knowledge of how this would go down in a criminal proceeding, as that is a different animal altogether.

Yeah I know but what I am saying is it's no use if the plaintiff wins in this case cuz there is nothing there to claim from optionsellers.com if he's insulated his personal assets completely from the company's and it's optionsellers.com who's the other party on the POA. The way to recover the investment losses is from his personal assets if it can be proven in a criminal court that he's criminally responsible and he's personally benefitted from his criminal activities then there might be some chance of recovery.

Most likely also, he would need to pay a hefty fine to NFA/CFTC. He's registered as a commodity trading advisor there. Would NFA/CFTC be giving this fine to the victims to compensate for their losses or keep it to themselves? That's another thing to be seen.

 

[RedDuke]

Yeah I know but what I am saying is it's no use if the plaintiff wins in this case cuz there is nothing there to claim from optionsellers.com if he's insulated his personal assets completely from the company's and it's optionsellers.com who's the other party on the POA. The way to recover the investment losses is from his personal assets if it can be proven in a criminal court that he's criminally responsible and he's personally benefitted from his criminal activities then there might be some chance of recovery.

This is a very very long shot. Still can not believe they held it all in such an illiquid positions. Insane. Collecting 0.05

 

[JSOP]

This is a very very long shot. Still can not believe they held it all in such an illiquid positions. Insane. Collecting 0.05

And with expiration dates so far in the future. The theta must be horrible on these.

 

[Overnight]

...CTA must execute according to D doc, and if it was done this way, there is really no case.

That has come up a few times, the "D doc". What is that? If it is less than 4,000,000 pages, I might be able to scan it over the holiday weekend and find something. If it goes over 4.5 million? Nah. Would be after X-Mas.