siddharth18

Anyone looking at bear put spreads on $TLRY?

U.S. Files Criminal Charges Against Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes, Ramesh Balwani WSJ (paywall) link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-files-criminal-charges-against-theranoss-elizabeth-holmes-ramesh-balwani-1529096005 Bypass paywall link: https://outline.com/dUwMC4

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-30/theranos-fatal-flaws-were-in-plain-sight

Yeah I was surprised to see an article on CNBC about FinancialSamurai. Almost reads like a thinly veiled advertorial.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/theranos-movie-based-on-bad-blood-book-to-star-jennifer-lawrence

So according to you, he should simply "put an outrageously large one time payment together" (that likely represents a lifetime of saving+patience+discipline+foresight+risk taking+luck, that may or may not be repeated in the future) without thinking it through...just because...he's crazy smart and figure out to make money back in the future? And also because "kids are more important" ?

Agree with all of this. Realize that you're fighting an uphill battle; so the wisest way to "win" is to avoid turning it into a war. If this does turn into a war, then finding the best attorney has got to become a full time job because your fortune (literally) depends on it. I don't have experience with family law specifically but a while ago when I needed an attorney in a different specialty - the wisest advice I got was to find an attorney that is "familiar with the local judges and knows their biases." Your goal should be to find an attorney who has a solid history and reputation (with the local judges) as someone who's sharp, knowledgeable and won't hesitate to appeal an unfair decision. Basically - the judge needs to know your attorney's aggressiveness and his past actions in order for him to resist making a biased or unfair decision. This is because judges don't like their verdicts being overturned on appeal, so they are likely to be less biased in their ruling if they see a familiar attorney who has a history of appealing egregious verdicts/rulings. +1

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-theranos-elizabeth-holmes-deception/

So there's no honor among CDS traders?

Well I, for one, do not think he should be punished for raising the price. He played a legal game where the incentives rewarded him for raising the price so that's what he did. If I'm not mistaken, I think Preet Bharara or Eric Holder, in one of their interviews, is asked about this. About why no bankers during financial crisis went to jail. And the answer was basically that the burden of proof required to prove criminal guilt is very high. And prosecutors are reluctant to bring a case that isn't a slam dunk because the loss can set a dangerous/unexpected precedent and is very demoralizing to the staff. In some way, winning a case is less about that case itself and more about preventing 10 similar cases. This dynamic is especially exacerbated when the department is understaffed.

That's a very myopic way of looking at things. A world filled with Shkrelis and Holmes would be a world where executives would chronically misrepresent their firm's financial position for their personal gain. That would be a transmogrified world where distrust would be rampant, markets would be very inefficient and the cost of capital would be extremely high. It would place the honest executives at a disadvantage due to market's inability to discern the money-good from money-bad. The rising cost of capital and the opportunity cost of society's inability to fund innovation would be a lot more than hundreds of billions. I also reject the notion that Shkreli was somehow unfairly treated or picked on, merely because he opposed a candidate or insulted the regulators or hiked the price of a rare drug. Actually his case had nothing to do with the price hike or unpopularity with the politicians or the media. The feds started probing Shkreli long before media picked up on his price hike or made him infamous. Secondly, he refused to show remorse or admit wrongdoing until he a few hours before sentencing. He wanted to loudly vindicate himself and prove his theory that him defrauding his investors was A-OK. So for the regulators, it wasn't just about proving Martin wrong, but all the future wanna-be Martins wrong. Shkreli insisted on a high-stakes, ego-driven showdown and that's what he got.

So using your logic, you'd let a future Shkreli defraud you out of your money as long as he insists after defrauding you that he will ultimately make you all your money back and create a lot of value for society?

https://medium.com/@zemacedo/blockchain-value-investment-opportunity-rialto-8c8f8d4adf17

There's a big difference between selling a future dream/vision and lying about past and present facts. I think that's where Theranos crossed the line. If you read SEC's complaint, they highlight multiple instances of egregiously false statements originating from the top, just to keep the story alive. Theranos went beyond simply "highlighting the amazing stuff." It began fabricating facts that it knew didn't exist. For instance, Holmes told that Theranos’ technology had been deployed by the DOD in Afghanistan when that was never the case. I don't know if Bezos ever made factually incorrect claim, that he knew was false, to raise capital. Such lies are not the same as consistently overestimating future production levels because investors treat, or should treat, a statement of fact issued by a company differently than forward looking projections. There's a HUGE difference between saying "our company has $1B cash on the balance sheet today" VS "We predict our company will have $1B cash on the balance sheet by next year." I think the only reason Theranos' BoD were consisted of accomplished heavy weights (rather than experts in the medical field) was to keep the story alive. A BoD consisting of medical experts would smell Holmes' BS must faster than Kissinger and Mattis might. At the same time, having Kissinger, Mattis and Boies on the Board gives a much stronger aura of legitimacy which would then allow Theranos to fly under the radar for as long as possible. Textbook definition of a "con artist."

Do you have any thoughts on deep out of the money 2020 UVXY puts?