Three Short Hours Inside the SEC, and an International Bancshares Cor... -10/01/09 at 12:19 AM CDTby Judd Bagley

And so it was with today’s second and concluding session of the SEC’s roundtable on securities lending and short selling: I expected the absolute worst, but in the end was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t quite as bad as I feared. That’s not the same as proclaiming it a good thing, because it was not. Indeed, I stick by ...

L.A. Dodger Fans Plead to News Corporation and Time Warner Inc., and ... -09/28/09 at 1:00 PM CDTby Perry Rod

Nearly 3,000 miles away from the corporate headquarters of media titans News Corporation (NWS) and Time Warner Inc. (TWX) is the entertainment capital of the world, Los Angeles, California.  Nowhere in the world has amassed a larger group of entertainment industry professionals.  As a result, nowhere in the world holds a larger proportion of cri...

Insider Sales Continue to Pile On at FedEx Corporation -09/25/09 at 2:42 PM CDTby Peter York

From May 2009 onward, FedEx Corporation (FDX) executives have been consistently exercising options and selling shares.  It began with FedEx Express President David Bronczek, who on May 4th exercised 40,000 shares at about $56 and sold for only $59.  The next day, the CFO and the CEO made similar trades. In July, David Bronczek started up another...

Is The Market Ignoring Big Lots, Inc? -09/24/09 at 12:22 PM CDTby Reggie Abaca

With all the talk about the success of low price retailers like 99 Cent Only Stores and Dollar Tree, you would think Big Lots, Inc. (BIG) would be in the same category of strong performance stories this year, right? Wrong. Big Lots is down 20% in the last year while 99 Cent Only Stores and Dollar Tree are up about 40% and 30%.  Big Lots went dow...

Another Day, Another Buyout Rumor - This Time Electronic Arts -09/23/09 at 2:35 PM CDTby Mahyar Hashemi

Why so many rumors in the video game space about acquisitions? Because apparently they work.  THQ Inc. (THQI) was up 13% yesterday as a result of a rumor that Viacom and others are interested in buying them.  But as one poster pointed out, why would THQ raise 100 million in a convertible offering one month prior to a proposed buyout?  It sh...

Investing in Death and Dendreon -09/23/09 at 12:49 PM CDTby Mark Mitchell

When Dendreon’s FDA application was derailed simultaneously with a naked short selling attack that flooded the market with tens of millions of phantom shares, Dendreon’s supporters went berserk. They sent the government hundreds of letters complaining about the naked short selling and the apparent machinations of Michael Milken’s associa...

Why THQ Inc. (THQI) is Unlikely To Be A Buyout Target And Why dealRep... -09/22/09 at 11:49 AM CDTby Perry Rod

Take Two (TTWO) Interactive, a company with a major video game sports division, received a buyout offer last year from video game sports giant Electronic Arts (ERTS) before the market storm.  Today, there is a rumor that THQ (THQI), whose list of internal intellectual property is small and comparatively unimpressive in terms of sales volume, is recei...

Michael Milken's Prostate Cancer Foundation vs. Dendreon -09/15/09 at 11:33 AM CDTby Mark Mitchell

In July 2008, not long before Cell Genesys announced that its drug was killing people, CNBC’s Jim Cramer called Dendreon a “dog.” Cramer, of course, did not mention that the illegal naked short selling of Dendreon was continuing apace. Throughout that month, more than 1 million Dendreon shares “failed to deliver” every day, a...

Another Take Two Scandal, or Just Another Wall Street Scandal? -09/15/09 at 11:14 AM CDTby Perry Rod

An unusual event occurred at 4:01 PM on September 1st, 2009 as video game investors were staring intently at their Dow Jones Newswire streamers.  Take Two Interactive (TTWO) was to announce earnings on that day and news hit the streamer, “Take-Two Swings To 3Q Loss; Co Cautious On FY Outlook.”  Opening up the report revealed an exten...

Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne Was Right All Along, Says CNBC's Charlie ... -09/04/09 at 12:00 PM CDTby Judd Bagley

It has been long maintained at Deep Capture that Charlie Gasparino is possibly the most insightful figure at CNBC. Today, Mr. Gasparino underscored that status while on air with Joe Grano, former CEO at UBS Financial Services (HIG) and an early predictor of the current financial crisis. Grano’s interview was set to coincide with the upcoming first a...

Cell Genesys and Dendreon Inc. - If Only There Was A Pattern -09/04/09 at 11:57 AM CDTby Mark Mitchell

In December 2007, three U.S. Congressmen — Mike Michaud (D-Maine), Dan Burton (R-Indiana) and Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) — called on the House Commerce Committee to investigate why the FDA failed to approve Dendreon’s treatment for prostate cancer. Referring to Dr. Scher and his ally, Dr. Hussain, the lawmakers said in a letter that “there...