Ares Capital, Allied Capital, and David Einhorn: The Predator in a Cu... -06/14/10 at 11:41 AM EDTby Mark Mitchell

I received an email a while back from Jim Brickman, a crony of short selling hedge fund manager David Einhorn, demanding that I post the Securities and Exchange Commission inspector general’s report on the commission’s investigation of Allied Capital (NYSE: AFC). According to Brickman, the report proves that Einhorn was right about Allied bein...

Europe Comes to Terms With Market Manipulation; the SEC, News Corpora... -05/24/10 at 2:26 PM EDTby Mark Mitchell

Well, the current state of the global financial markets is certainly interesting. I mean, you have to be a bit sick in the head, but if you think about it the right way, it really is “interesting” — sort of like, oo-wee, look, the girl in the cute leotard is falling off the tightrope, there’s no net, and she’s going to go &ld...

On Wall Street, Membership Has Its Privileges - Just Ask Deutsche Bank -05/17/10 at 10:37 AM EDTby Judd Bagley

One of the great episodes of The Simpsons follows Homer as he comes to realize that not all Springfield citizens are treated equally. The difference, Homer eventually discovers, is membership in a secret society known as the Stonecutters. Once on the inside, Homer is delighted to find his new affiliation subjects him to an enviable set of alternate rules....

Michael Jackson Calls Marvel Entertainment a Strong Buy in 2003 -05/11/10 at 9:39 PM EDTby Perry H. Rod

Recordings from 2003 have surfaced of superstar Michael Jackson giving possible stock advice to an anonymous source: We must move as fast as we can because the, on the film side of it, ah, I don't know if you have been reading the paper... but Marvel already have sold off their internet rights and the fact that stock is so low now.  They put out Spi...

Goldman's Gold Has Lost Its Luster -05/11/10 at 2:17 PM EDTby Judd Bagley

The most clichéd, yet satisfying, moment in any movie comes when the brutally bullying antagonist discovers he’s lost that which had empowered his abusive nature. Wait…I take that back. Seeing that fear in the bad guy’s eyes is the second most satisfying movie moment, the first being the inevitable administration of long-overdue ...

Analyst Asks the Right Question to Smith Micro Software Management -05/06/10 at 8:47 AM EDTby Peter York

Oftentimes, conference call analyst participants tend to hold back on asking more obvious straightforward in-your-face type questions.  They instead avoid them for fear of breaking decorum and instead dive into minute details.  But it doesn’t happen that way all the time, and perhaps Wall Street needs more female analysts who will cut thro...

The SEC's Culture of Regulatory Capture Prior to Goldman Sachs -04/30/10 at 1:31 AM EDTby Judd Bagley

Perspective is a funny thing. The full taxpayer cost of the S&L bailout came to an enormous, inflation-adjusted tab of around $255-billion; and yet, in the shadow of the latest spate of bank bailout checks written by Congress, that doesn’t seem like much. Similarly, the $60-billion Madoff fiasco tends to make the many Ponzi scheme busts that fol...

Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and Others Who Pumped and Dumped O... -04/20/10 at 7:05 PM EDTby Mark Mitchell

It is perhaps beyond the ability of an innocent public to believe this, but there is a growing body of evidence that a few mad scientists might have engineered the near-destruction of the American financial system. Except they weren’t scientists, per se – they were unscrupulous, market manipulating hedge fund managers, and we can almost hear t...

Coming Redemption For Take Two Interactive Investors -04/20/10 at 11:59 AM EDTby Perry H. Rod

For the last couple weeks, Take Two's (NASDAQ:TTWO) Red Dead Redemption titles for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 have showed considerable pre-order interest on the Amazon bestseller video game chart as well as other online charts.  GameStop stores also appear to be involved in a heavy marketing campaign for the title.  This has come as a surpr...

Guest Thrown Off Live TV Show For Calling CNBC Hosts "Public Relation... -04/17/10 at 10:12 PM EDTby Reggie Abaca

It was as if a security breach had occurred at CNBC.  A first time guest to the show by the name of Sylvain Raynes, author of The Analysis of Structured Securities and an upcoming title, The Elements of Structured Finance, was bullied and thrown off a program after he broke some kind of previously unknown rule of not bringing up CNBC ties with Gold...

Tix Corporation Stock Volume and Price Rises on Valuation, Executive ... -04/07/10 at 1:54 PM EDTby Peter York

Just two weeks ago, I wrote that Tix Corporation (NASDAQ:TIXC) was trading at a considerable valuation discount to the market given their latest report and projections. Today, somebody (or some institution) is apparently agreeing with that assessment.   Tix Corp volume is well over five times normal levels at the time of this publication and the pri...