| To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (121) | 1/23/2004 12:20:34 AM | | From: ms.smartest.person | | | | WSJ - CBS MarketWatch's Calandra Quits Over Informal SEC Probe
By CARL BIALIK
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
Financial-news publisher MarketWatch.com Inc. said Thom Calandra, the writer of a stock-picking subscription newsletter, has resigned in the face of internal and Securities and Exchange Commission inquiries into his trading activities.
Larry Kramer, MarketWatch's chairman and chief executive, said in an interview that Mr. Calandra submitted his resignation Thursday rather than submit documents about his trading. Mr. Kramer said the company had set a deadline of Thursday for receiving the documents, which it requested last month in response to the SEC's informal inquiry.
The SEC has asked MarketWatch, based in San Francisco, for information about the company's policies for its editorial staff's equity trading, as well as any internal communications specifically about Mr. Calandra's trading, Mr. Kramer said. He added that the company is fully cooperating with the SEC inquiry, which the company said in a statement it first learned about last month. The inquiry is looking at Mr. Calandra's trading dating back to October 2002, the company said.
Mr. Calandra, 47 years old, who had been with the company since its founding in 1997, had written The Calandra Report since last March. Previously, he wrote columns that appeared on CBS MarketWatch.com, the company's free financial-news Web site. Mr. Kramer said the company was terminating the newsletter and the $299 subscription fee would be refunded on a prorated basis to the newsletter's "several thousand" subscribers. Mr. Calandra's last column appeared Tuesday.
"I've worked hard for the past eight years helping to build MarketWatch and for the last year I've worked hard creating The Calandra Report," Mr. Calandra told CBS MarketWatch.com. "While it's been tremendously rewarding professionally, it has also been stressful. And the SEC's informal inquiry adds to this stress. So I've decided to take this time off to focus on my family, whom I adore. I look forward to the conclusion of the SEC's inquiry."
The news comes as MarketWatch is trying to grow again after weathering the dot-com downturn. Last week, MarketWatch closed the purchase of Pinnacor Inc., a provider of financial information and analysis tools, in a cash-and-stock deal initially valued at about $103 million.
MarketWatch has been expanding into paid services, acquiring Hulbert Financial Digest, a subscription newsletter, in 2002 and launching more paid newsletters last year. With the Pinnacor purchase, the company adds several Web-based tools that include applications for charting financial performance or screening stocks according to criteria such as price/earnings ratio and industry.
Its shares, which sank under $2 apiece in 2001, have rallied strongly in the past year, hitting a 52-week high of $11 on Tuesday. But they dropped sharply Thursday on news of the probe, down $1.03, or 9.4%, to $9.90 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Mr. Calandra was governed by looser restrictions than MarketWatch's news reporters, Mr. Kramer said. Mr. Calandra was barred from trading in stocks for 48 hours after the publication of the newsletter, and he had to disclose at the end of his column ownership of any stocks he was recommending. (For instance, in his last column, Mr. Calandra wrote, "I (and members of my immediate family) own securities in the following companies that are written about in this specific report: Harken Energy, Ivanhoe Energy, Nevsun Resources, Intraware and Illumina.) Reporters, by contrast, are barred from trading stocks in companies they cover.
"He came out from under being a news reporter," Mr. Kramer said. "We said we wouldn't feel it would be right to hold him under the same restrictions our journalists are under. We felt his subscribers would want him to be a trader."
Mr. Kramer said that MarketWatch's board was reviewing its current policies and may require greater disclosure and stricter enforcement guidelines for its reporters going forward. The changes have been under consideration for several months, and the review began before the Calandra inquiry surfaced, he added.
Write to Carl Bialik at carl.bialik@wsj.com
Updated January 22, 2004 4:21 p.m.
(Subscription required)
online.wsj.com
Used with permission of wsj.com |
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| To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (111) | 1/23/2004 12:31:26 AM | | From: ms.smartest.person | | | | Jack, Here's the whole link for the Calandra Portfolio. I wouldn't want anyone to think
Thom only knows the first 9 letters of the alphabet.
Try clicking the link or just scroll down to the table.
finance.yahoo.com
... the a table of the above symbols:
Symbol Last Trade Change Volume
ACRh.V 0.50 3:36PM ET 0.00 (0.00%) 10,000
ACRWF.PK 0.378 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-10.85%) 5,000
AMRN 1.66 2:56PM ET 0.01 (0.61%) 30,351
AUY 2.36 3:56PM ET 0.06 (2.48%) 135,300
BAESY.PK 12.85 5:21PM ET 0.00 (0.00%) 119,826
BGC.TO 2.38 3:52PM ET 0.04 (1.65%) 87,730
BITTF.PK 0.324 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-20.00%) 104,600
BTT.V 0.49 3:58PM ET 0.04 (7.55%) 335,900
CAL.TO 0.385 3:53PM ET 0.005 (1.32%) 652,231
CALVF.OB 0.288 3:52PM ET 0.01 (3.36%) 2,116,917
CAT 84.00 4:01PM ET 0.60 (0.72%) 2,055,400
CAU 3.70 3:59PM ET 0.15 (3.90%) 318,800
CDOUF.PK 0.70 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-16.27%) 14,000
CRDM 1.10 3:59PM ET 0.07 (5.98%) 1,951,075
CRESY 12.46 3:59PM ET 0.54 (4.53%) 231,130
DNT.V 0.95 3:50PM ET 0.05 (5.00%) 87,700
DRIV 26.25 4:00PM ET 0.53 (2.06%) 1,088,981
EEFT 17.479 3:59PM ET 0.242 (1.37%) 84,356
FWHT 20.69 3:59PM ET 0.13 (0.62%) 385,102
GIGM 2.00 3:59PM ET 0.06 (3.09%) 2,177,417
HEC 1.00 4:03PM ET 0.14 (12.28%) 9,447,800
HUGO 7.21 3:59PM ET 0.26 (3.48%) 819,271
IAG 6.90 4:03PM ET 0.03 (0.43%) 342,500
ILMN 8.87 3:59PM ET 0.83 (8.56%) 1,449,708
IMVh.V 0.94 3:58PM ET 0.29 (23.58%) 41,250
IMVIF.PK 0.715 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-31.90%) 13,100
ITRA 1.74 4:00PM ET 0.36 (17.06%) 2,395,901
IVAN 3.22 4:00PM ET 0.38 (10.56%) 10,477,121
IVN.TO 9.29 4:24PM ET 0.41 (4.23%) 2,450,919
KRY 2.62 3:59PM ET 0.04 (1.50%) 389,900
MAG.V 2.20 3:54PM ET 0.03 (1.38%) 75,088
MSLRF.PK 1.645 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-3.41%) 15,300
MTRX 13.791 3:59PM ET 0.799 (5.48%) 673,233
NSU.TO 4.65 4:49PM ET 0.48 (9.36%) 1,009,201
NXG 2.05 3:59PM ET 0.11 (5.09%) 1,541,900
ONT 1.43 4:00PM ET 0.04 (2.88%) 763,300
PNO 6.65 3:59PM ET 0.05 (0.75%) 71,600
PWLX.OB 0.25 3:59PM ET 0.08 (24.24%) 3,683,010
RKGRX 18.39 Jan 22 0.29 (1.55%) N/A
ROCAF.PK 0.19 Jan 15 0.00 (0.00%) 0
ROK.V 0.24 12:02PM ET 0.01 (4.35%) 4,500
SGC.V 2.94 3:55PM ET 0.25 (7.84%) 93,347
SGCNF.PK 2.23 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-10.80%) 24,000
SPNRF.PK 0.50 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-9.09%) 90,100
SRI.V 0.66 3:59PM ET 0.04 (5.71%) 149,711
SYNM 5.689 3:59PM ET 0.011 (0.19%) 149,405
TAH.TO 0.365 3:59PM ET 0.03 (7.59%) 8,944,351
TAHAF.PK 0.28 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-3.45%) 537,200
UDW 3.10 3:59PM ET 0.19 (5.78%) 140,300
VIT.V 0.89 3:58PM ET 0.01 (1.11%) 55,717
VTSRF.PK 0.68 5:21PM ET 0.00 (-1.45%) 14,500
WHT 2.79 4:03PM ET 0.07 (2.45%) 5,139,700
WLF.TO 5.42 3:58PM ET 0.01 (0.18%) 62,275
YRI.TO 3.07 3:58PM ET 0.06 (1.92%) 136,329
Did you notice my comment at the bottom of that post?
"This list is not quite complete. I think it runs through 12/1/2003. "
Now I will have to get to work and finish the job ... combing through all the Calandra Reports
and come up with a complete Watch List, Recommended List, Calandra Family Holdings List,
and even stocks that were casually mentioned in the body of The %$#@%#@% Report. :^(
Merry
Don't I do nice work?! ;-) |
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| To: Pluvia who started this subject | 1/23/2004 12:38:09 AM | | From: Wolff | | | | How to Manipulate a Stock Price, A guide for Journalists.
1. Create a website where news and opinions are mixed so often the reader can not tell when it sees real news vs. the opinions of Reporters.
2. Try to get affiliated with a news source where people expect journalist integrity, this brand faith will be useful.
3. Allow your reporters to hold positions in stocks which they are assigned to.
4. Create rules of ethics you report to readers that are being followed, then work around them. For example hold a position in one company but not in a second company with all the same players involved. If you are lucky the two will have the same name.
5. Create a special paid report that tells investors they will get inside information, before the masses.
6. Introduce yourself to the CEO or Chairman of the company. Go to his private residence, take flights with the CEO, and ask for and received material non public information prior to its release to share holders.
7. Put out price targets in your Paid Publication about this stock, then say you believe the price will go up when the News of X is released. (News of X was already disclosed to you in step 5)
8. Write up a news story that tells about the News you expect to come out. Key point, remember your excitement about whatever news will only help the shares of the company stock which you already own. Blue Sky for the company means Sky High for your trading account….keep focused, stay excited.
9. Remember if you get information from company officials while in private, be sure to ask the Investor relations person just before you go to press, this will allow the company structure to create plausible deniability to dissemination of inside information. A good rule of thumb is one week between insider information from the Chairman or CEO before you call up the IR rep. It the Investor Relations persons job to deny all claims and log your call.
10. Submit the news story to your editor. While your Editor is in process of approving the “News” story, telephone your friends to tell them the story is about to come out.
11. Assure your friends that his is not insider information because it may not still be true.
12. Assure readers that the story came from sources; remember that as a journalist you can protect your sources, especially if those sources are company insiders.
13. In your news story promote that more information will be available to readers if they pay for the PRIVATE report.
14. Lock up the information loop; tell you subscribers to not read other sources of information.
15. After the stock is manipulated begin preparing the readers for negative price action. Start talking about profit taking. Start talking about selling portions of your shares.
16. Remember “sources close to the company” means just what it says, sources close to the company whom are not part of the company but have inside information that is concerning the company that is non public, since these are protected by journalists sources laws, these persons disclosing inside information about stocks will be more than regulators will want to tangle with. IE Relax, everyone is doing it.
17. Trading on inside information is okay if the inside information is told from the company to another party, then told to you the reporter, then when you report the inside information to your readers its Public. (okay so its not legal to profit from inside information like this, but hey inside information is so confusing, you were certainly plausibly deniably confused) The regulators never anticipated this. Remember if the stock is getting too hot too fast, take the extra step of releasing a News story from the news arm of the website, be sure its picked up and sent out on the wires, this will create the impression that you were being a reporter. If you give the story out to your Paid stock letter first, it might raise more red flags.
18. Stay on your feet, mix up the reporting of news, the opinions, and the paid letter, have each reference each other. Blend the lines. Is it a PR, is a rewrite of PR, is your opinion, do you hold the stock? Make them not care.
Executive Summary:
The keys to manipulation are a blending of the line between journalist and paid stock promoter report writer. By maintaining both roles you will be able to wipe out the line between news and opinions. Developing private relationships with the directors of the company will give you a flow of information which will only be positive in tone to the stocks you own for your family. Remember being a journalist does not expose you to most of the rules of the SEC which are geared up to combat corrupt actions by Analysts, NOT REPORTERS. Enjoy this regulatory gap, it will make you stealth. And remember journalists are underpaid; you deserve to make money inside information, and is it really inside information if you create it yourself?
Journalists remember Perception is Realty, now go out there and create some. |
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| To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (132) | 1/23/2004 6:40:00 AM | | From: Pluvia | | | | nice damn work!
please give us any thoughts you have about stocks calandra seemed especially "feverish" about...
bring on the thom shortfolio! |
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| To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (121) | 1/23/2004 8:24:59 AM | | From: Check | | | | Hi Jack,
<< What is sad is that none of the major business periodicals called Calandra out on this pimping.>>
Oilpatch Updates called Cassandra out on this pimping of Ivanhoe Energy 3 times - and didn’t even get threatened with a lawsuit.
That’s how small we are - or how good our case was, that it didn’t even get a nasty letter from Robert Friedland in response.
For a lighter take on it, you can see “HI! HO! Ivanhoe! When the ducks are quacking, feed the ducks. Part 2 “ at oilpatchupdates.com
…or find the whole thing, including an analysis of the reported Ivanhoe Energy insider trading at oilpatchupdates.com under the Gofer Oil Updates.
(No, no relation to the SI Gofer – just old friends. <g>)
Check it out. |
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