Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Naked short selling

While driving around today running errands, I heard an interview with the author of an article in Rolling Stone about naked short selling and the market collapse of last year. Much of it was over my head, but the interviewer kept making the comment that descriptions of short selling, naked short selling, etc. that were very easy to follow and understand were in this article. So when I got home, I read it. For those of you who are all into the Fed and the market (i.e. Stephanie), this is a must read.

All I can say is...UNBELIEVABLE.

5 comments:

Stephanie said...

AMAZING. Great article.

Stephanie said...

BTW, Matt Taibbi at RS wrote this article that I linked to back in March that details financial shenanigans:

http://secondhandsmokingjacks.blogspot.com/2009/03/fillet-of-financial-crisis.html

Anonymous said...

The article is not without criticism, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-tucker/who-duped-rolling-stone-g_b_311141.html

Stephanie said...

Hmm. I wish DTucker would spell out the inaccuracies for us. It's too far over my head for me to figure it out on my own.

In Fed We Trust details the Bear collapse and what when on inside the Fed to broker the deal with JPMorgan. I don't have it here, but will compare when I get home.

Too Big to Fail is another book that details the financial collapse and the Fed's actions through this time. I get the impression from author interviews that TBTF walks through happenings by the hour during critical periods.

The thing that strikes me most about IFWT is how very few men were involved in making decisions with colossal implications for taxpayers. I've said it before: I'm not sure that nation states are relevant anymore.

Stephanie said...

I don't think In Fed We Trust mentions a Mar 11 meeting, unless the meeting described on pp. 152-153 occurred on Mar. 11. I can't quite tell.