June 20, 2009
How to make our capital markets honest and free of fraud?
1. No exemptions to the rules -- everyone must follow the same rules.
2. Strict pre-borrow requirement before initiating a short sale. A seller must have the shares in possession before selling them. If one goes on eBay, nobody would allow this individual to sell an item that he/she does not have multiple times to create artificial oversupply and to depress the price of that item. Why does the SEC make exemptions and allow selling of the shares that the individuals/brokers/market makers do not own/have? Why does the SEC allow these individuals artificially oversupply the market, to manipulate supply/demand and price discovery?
3. Reinstating the old uptick rule. Any solid evidence does completely not support the arguments that the industry makes against the uptick rule. The rule was working fine for seventy years, multiple well-designed studies in the sixties and eighties (not the poorly designed study done during a bull market of 2005) done confirm that the rule was working and it was needed to maintain market integrity.
4. Enforce the law, enforce the law, enforce the law, enforce the law, and enforce the law.
I have complained multiple number of times to the SEC and NYSE Market Surveillance about NYSE Designated Market Maker (Barclays Capital) for Titanium Metals (NYSE:TIE) committing fraud and stealing from investors. Two year later the same swindler continues perpetrating fraud and stealing from investors. How are we supposed to have any confidence in our markets when the SEC refuses to enforce the law and to do its job?
NYSE Designated Market Maker for Titanium Metals (NYSE:TIE) commits FRAUD and steals from investors by manipulating the market for Titanium Metals security via reporting fictitious trades on the consolidated trading tape of NYSE exchange without submitting these fraudulent trades for matching and clearing. The specialist has just committed another fraud on Friday, June 19 2009, when he/she artificially and illigally deflated the reported closing price ("painted the tape") for this security by 3%.
On June 19th 2009, Titanium Metals (NYSE:TIE) opened trading at $10.12 and traded most of the trading day above $10.00 (as high as $10.30) on approximately 2 million shares volume. At 3:40 PM, the specialist announced on-close BUY imbalance for 1,485,900 shares. During the last few minutes of regular hours trading the stock was trading between $10.07 – 10.17, the last trade was $10.10 at 4:00 PM. But a second after the closing bell, the specialist records 2,885,500 shares block trade at $9.90 and reported $9.90 as a closing price (20 cents or 3% below the prior regular hours closing trade). The stock did not trade at $9.90 during regular trading at all. There were no $9.90 open bids during regular 9:30-4:00 PM trading, during the last few minutes of trading the stock was trading between $10.07 – 10.17, but the specialist just arbitrarily painted the tape and deflated the closing price by 3%. As a result, the specialist has stolen from Titanium Metals shareholders and cheated $10 call options holders.