Naked Short Selling and DeepCapture
For anyone that has not heard of Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, where have you been? Mr. Byrne has become the champion of the fight against naked short selling over the past couple of years. Mr. Byrne started a blog back some time ago called DeepCapture.com. In it, you can find some very interesting information, and the pictures he paints sound exactly like the story of Sirius XM. The following is a short snipped from an article by Mark Mitchell, a reporter/blogger from DeepCapture:
“This same clique of short-sellers has attacked dozens of other companies, almost always resorting to similar tactics: false “independent” research (dictated by the short-sellers, who trade ahead of it); harassment of targeted executives by thugs and criminals; scurrilous rumor-mongering; so-called “bashers” who are paid by the shorts to flood the Internet with smears and distortions; corporate espionage; government investigations (which are instigated by the shorts, and drain corporate resources, but usually end in no action); and bogus class action lawsuits (usually filed by a corrupt law firm called Milberg Weiss until Milberg’s top partners went to jail for bribing plaintiffs).”
A hugely disproportionate number of the companies that have been targeted by this clique of short-sellers have also been victimized by massive levels of phantom stock.
“False independent research”? Would this be Mr. Weinkes of GS? Or perhaps more publicized reporters such as Cramer and Cramer’s puppet Robert Holmes (who you may remember Homer took to task on his incorrect “research”).
Scurrilous rumor-mongering and so-called “bashers”? Yahoo Message Boards anyone? Comments on Seeking Alpha? “Anonymous Cowards” comments from other blogs and message boards?
Government investigations that drain corporate resources but usually end in no action? Could that be a reference to the options backdating investigation that XM was going through? And what if the NAB had the help of some of these naked shorters to squeeze every last day out of the FCC during the merger process?
Bogus class action lawsuits by none other than Milberg Weiss? Sounds like we hit the nail on the head here…
Massive levels of phantom stock? Perhaps some of you read my article entitled RegSho is a Joke, where I pointed out that in order for Sirius XM to be placed on the RegSho list, a minimum of 15 million shares, or 30% of the day’s trades, had to fail to deliver? Sirius was on that RegSho list for 28 days straight as of the time of that writing. That would mean over the course of that time, a MINIMUM of 420,000,000 shares – almost half a Billion shares (representing 1/6th of their float) were phantom shares that never existed and were never delivered. How can a stock react “normally” when the market is flooded with half a billion shares that do not exist?
It seems that many companies are fighting back on their own. Of course Mr. Byrne is fighting for Overstock.com. In another article, Fairfax Financial Holdings is also filing a lawsuit alleging stock manipulation.
It has come time that Sirius XM needs to do the same thing. Mel needs to stand up for his investors and correct wrongs that are being done to his company. Obviously, we can help. There is a thread in the SiriusBuzz forums where you can obtain the contact information for the SEC as well as the New York Attorney General. It is time that the blatant manipulation of Sirius XM stock comes to a halt.
Position: Long SIRI.
Everyday we flock here hoping to find a life line to cling on to and keep us afloat. That life line however is moving further and further away. Karmazin has not held a shareholders meeting since the merger. He has conveyed his messages through Cramers show and the aborted ML conference. I have been calling IR Paul Blalock for the past year and always get the same line, the focus is on the business model not the stock price. I do not think he realizes that the value of the company is predicated upon the stock price. Am I kidding myself? He knows exactly what is going on and continues to lie to shareholders. There is hell of a lot more going on here that meets the eye. Hartlieb may be on to something about a very cheap sellout to private equity. Do you know Apollo has 91 million shares at an average share price in .30 cent range? Would they take a buyout above $1….you bet they would. I believe this company is in grave danger and we are being kicked aside. Mel is tight lipped to the retail shareholder. We know nothing. All we do here is speculate with no hard evidence. Where there is evidence is the fact that someone trading on the Cincinnati Board of Trade is manipulating this stock. If I know it….Mel knows it. He does nothing about it…WHY? I have mentioned several times to Paul Blalock about what the CEO of Overstock has done for his shareholders. He supports them. Where is our support from Mel? How much more of this shit can we endure? Is it time we get together and try to formulate an investor strategy? I think it is.
Hi,
what’s your take on the 30millions shares that were bought/sold at the end of the trading day today on Sirius?
was that manipulation? someone getting out? or someone getting in?
30 million!!!????? how could someone trade that many at one time ???!!!
There was 8 million friday afterhours and I hoped it was to get in, but looks like it was an out.
Definitely some getting in.
Definitely someone getting out
Here’s a video for more information on the matter…worth every investors time!
http://www.bloomberg.com/avp/a.....QPAJ1s.asf
as for the 30 million share trade at the close…it was a buy…could have been short covering or a new or increased position.
The good news is that if someone picked up 30 million shares, it’s a good sign for current investors…
I can tell you one thing for sure. If Mel dilutes again, sells to private equity for less than $4.00, or files for bankruptcy protection, I will cancel seven subscriptions that day. I have one lifetime sub that I will keep. Mel! You have been warned! I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way.
How can you tell who is buying and how many shares are being purchased or sold? i would like to know so I can take a look for myself.
Thanks
level 2 chart shows a green line…thats a buy.
Thanks for the answer but I don’t know what a level 2 chart is. LOL
GTS…
I have four subs and I will be right behind you. Maybe we should all email Mel letting him know if he screws us we will cancel our subs.
what makes you think it was a buy? we dropped 11% for the day
What makes a market is a buyer and a seller and at what price the exchange takes place. We know there had to be a seller of the 30 million in order for someone to buy them. What we really want to know is who was on the buy side. We want it to be long term holder, i.e. institutional money, mutual fund, etc. Many times a big floor trader will buy a large block to disperse throughout the next day/week/month at just a little higher price than what they paid. This does us very little as long term holders. It’s just churn that does nothing more than give liquidity.
Now if you want to start talking about the seller selling naked, well that brings us back to all of the discussions we’ve been having lately. Who knows what the he!! is going on. The SEC doesn’t even know half the time.
Thanks for the link above Brandon.
Brandon,
Note the date of the video….July 2006. Two plus years later and nothing has changed. Naked shorting continues because there are no penalties. Cox knew then naked shorting was illegal and did nothing. McCain is right, fire Cox. He is nothing more than a tool for the market thieves.
I have seen that video in the past.
It simply pisses me off every time that I see it. It is definately worth a watch.
The 30 million AH shares traded was more than likely someone covering their short position and someone going long. This deal/trade was done outside of the market. Think of what 30 million shares trade on the open market would take Sirius stock price. This is what pisses me off. These boileroom trades.
gettitstr8…
There is always a buyer and seller in the form of the “market maker” (MM).
You do not sell to a buyer directly. You sell to the market maker. The Market maker sells to the buyer.
If there was no market maker, all trades would be market orders.
Naked Shorts will not stop until the Feds arrest a group of brokers and do the perp walk. They have already shown that their not capable of that oversite. Unfortunately for long Sirius investors.
I emailed investor relations today with a link to this article. I got an email back from them stating that they would like my phone number to have “a representative contact me directly to answer any questions that I may have.”
I doubt I will recieve that call this afternoon, so I guess we will wait until tomorrow to see if that call comes in… and by whom it is made. I will definately keep you all updated.
Newman,
Usually Blalock does the call back. I did have his sidekick Hooper call me once.
SEC has not done anything in regards to naked short selling of SiriusXM or any other company.
Mr. Byrne has been the lone voice that has tried to keep the spotlight on naked shorting.
Apollo convienced Mel to take the position at Sirius. I knew Apollo had a boat load of shares. I did not know that the average cost was in the .30 a share range
A lot of us never understood how Sirius with the intention to buy XM did not have all the money lined up ahead of time. It was not like the DOJ and FCC approved the merger in 30 days and caught them off guard.
With the company merged and the ability to start producing profit in all quarters in the near future, was their a plan to take a very bad loan drive the price down and bring in a savior to buy the company?
The retail stock holders to get pennies for each share and think they were lucky?
Then the private owned SirusXM obtains better long term financing and makes a ton of money.
All speculation and I hope not.
I think Sirius XM has a responsibility to the retail share holders.I doubt Mel and Apollo think that way though.
Will we be kicked aside as SiriusXMinvestors says?
I guess it is very possible.
The stock is just not moving above the $1.00 range.
Is it being held down on purpose?
The question I have for this board is besides voting no to any silly offer
What else can we do if a silly offer is made?
SiriusXMInvestor:
Not that I’m doubting you, but can you verify Apollo’s 91 million shares at .30?. My calculations are showing a CBA of 1.70/sh.
Thanks
Brandon, what you are saying is partially true however anyone that has direct access to the market via IB or Tradestation or any number of other platforms don’t necessarily use market makers. My friend is a market maker in the oil pits and they are seeing more and more trades being executed electronically thereby passing the market makers.
Market makers still allow for a market in many different markets but the electronic world has slowly been taking over for the last 10+ years. You mentioned earlier that it was a ‘buy’ because it was a green bar. Different platforms have different meanings by this but just guessing it was probably because the order was at the ask which means the higher of the 2 prices thereby indicating an uptick if you will.
Brandon, in regards to the no market maker, all trades would be market trades isn’t necessarily true. When I trade I have the option of selling at the bid, the ask or any other price I choose (through a limit order.) If I want my order to be taken right away at the best (supposedly) available price at that moment I would place a market order which would either have to buy at the ask or sell to the bid.
I had heard Apollo paid in the .30’s during last Thursdays’ Sirius Buzz. I called IR last Friday and asked how Apollo acquired 91 million shares at an avg. cost in the .30’s. Blalock got very quiet then double talked me but did not say it was not true. He also said they have not sold any shares.
Thanks, Let me do some digging to see what I can verify. They have been holding tightly, which is good.
I have to agree with GetItStraight on the market maker issue…
my understanding is that Nasdaq does not use the NYSE type of market maker system…
Nasdaq is mostly electronic trade matching to my understanding.
Further, your broker could always bypass the whole system and match a buy and sell order, completely eliminating the middle men.
Further, as to market orders, you can’t do this experiment on Siri, as there are way to many trades going through, although it may work with options, but it works with low volume stocks: put your buy order in below the listed ask but above the listed bid, and if the market maker does not sell to you at that price, your order becomes the new bid price, or put in a sell order at higher than the bid price and lower than the ask price, and if the market maker does not buy your shares at that price, your order becomes the new ask price. When you do this, if someone comes along and tries to buy (or sell) at market order or with a limit within range, you will sell to the buyer (or buy from the seller)…my understanding is you buy (or sell) directly through electronic system, not as two transactions through the market maker.
Well………….It tooks us all a very long time. But we are finally all able to see through the bullshit and right now we all smell bullshit with this companies leadership. I keep thinking about that one line I heard on Mels first cnbc interview. ” Your looking tan and relaxed today”. I’m thinking he’s tan and relaxed and we shareholders just went through hell and were rewarded by Mel selling us out and down the shitter. Someone give me one actual fact from Mel worth a shit right now. SRXM investor has it completely right. No way does keeping the retail shareholder in the dark, translate into anything positive. We’ve all been down that road before with Mel…………………
I was thinking today about how the owners of Lehman and Aig and the many others, are feeling right about now. And I keep thinking……….Are we on that track? I sold half my shares simply to make sure I don’t completely go there. What a big clusterfuck. And I thought buying Sbux was a disaster………………….
I don’t know what to think anymore.
2000 $60.00 a share no subscibers…
2008 $.89 a share with 19 million subscibers
They will add at least 2 million a year for the next 5 years easy
More debt but you got to be kidding me, who is controlling this stock???????
scrf – I have similar feelings about Mel but only to an extent.
We have to remember that this guy was run ragged during the whole FCC fiasco. Running a big company is like a trying to start or stop a locomotive, it takes a while. Now with the credit crisis we are facing it’s no wonder that we will have some major head winds to face.
Considering the stock went down today in a horrible market would somewhat be expected. The fact that it went down almost 10% I guess could be due to it now being a speculative stock (you could almost consider it a penny stock) though I don’t like the sound of that.
I think what we as shareholders can do is concentrate on the few things that are in our control. One of those things is to get the word out to friends, family, coworkers and anyone else we can to let them know about Sirius and the great radio they offer. We know Sirius isn’t doing too great a job of it themselves right now.
I still love the company and the product so I’m sticking with it.
GetItStraight.
LOL. I was hoping Mel would come out looking like he’d been sleeping under a bridge for 17 months. No haircut, clothes unwashed for months. A big sign around his neck, I will work for food. LOL.
Of course we all love the product. That’s why we all sit her still thinking it’s gotta be a good investment. Cause we love the product.
I refuse to give Mel one ounce or one inch of credit until I see some positives. I completely expected the following.
1. Layoffs.
2. Reduction in real estate and any other valued assets.
3. An actual strategy announcement at the merger regarding programming availability for both products.
4. A friggin email or something from investor relations thanking me and every shareholder for our calls to K. Martin and everyone else.
5. Mel taking zero salary until he gets this thing fixed.
6. He should have backed out………….
7, 8, 9, 10………………..
He’s not a bank. He’s got a real revenue stream. He could get Howard to renegotiate his deal and others. I’ve always wanted a Sirius product store………. In a big time city like NYC, LA. Where you could actually go in. Music blaring. Different stations on. Products on display. People there who get you hooked up. Like an Apple store. It would kick ass. Where is the fucking thing. Tell me that?
Sorry man. Just pissed off.
Later.
it’s like there has been no merger…
I turn on my Sirius radio and there is nothing, and I repeat, nothing, different than before the merger…
no announcement.
no joint programing.
no ads on television saying that they merged.
no print ads saying that they merged.
are they holding back for some reason? do they have some big fireworks event planned for the October 6th thing? what gives, mel?
Can Share holders oust Mel and the board like other companies have done
Can shareholders call for an emergency meeting to hear what the H*LL is going on