given2invest

I bet you guys are big Glenn Beck fans. :) Nobody is manipulating anything. If the company is legit and healthy then this will be the buying opportunity of the century. Do you realize that there are NO shares borrowable to short on Interactive Brokers but there are 10's of millions I can buy at the current price level? My point is, I can't even enter a short position if I wanted to (and send the price down) but I can buy (as can anyone else) essentially unlimited stock at these levels. The market is pure capitalism. If this was such an obvious manipulation, many large funds would be foaming at the math to buy all the shares they could and maybe some did today. But all this talk about short manipulation makes me lol.

I'm not saying it's easy to behave like a robot and not let emotions get to you, I suffer from emotions like anyone else. But there is no economic difference between holding a stock vs. buying it fresh. Emotionally? That's a whole different story. In all seriousness, best of luck to you. The worst part of these china frauds is the huge money its costing investors. There is nothing fun or funny about any of them. You said "lesson learned" but I wonder what lesson you learned. Not to sell puts? Not really a lesson to be learned. If you owned the stock outright, you'd have suffered the same results. What's the lesson? How would you have known this was a (potential) fraud before this report came out? Me, my lesson was on TXIC many months ago. After that, I vowed to never touch another Chinese company that's listed in the U.S. There are plenty of fish on the sea that I don't need to fish for those.

I know next to nothing about this company and skimmed the report so I can't comment on whether it's a fraud or not or whether the CFO adequately refuted MW claims. What I can say is MW has been right every time they have initiated on a china stock and their report was very damning. Of course, I'm telling you nothing the market doesn't already think. And the decesion to initiate a new buy vs. selling an old long on a report that sends a stock down huge is exactly the same decision. You might think it's different psychologically, but it's exactly the same decision, taxes not withstanding. I'm sorry you don't see it like that.

CCME and LFT reported earnings and announced buybacks before they were halted for fraud. Means nothing.

:D

Huh? This isn't theory. Your past decisions and your cost basis have no bearing on your decision today. Missing a profit vs. "recovering a loss" is exactly the same thing in investing. Money is money, it doesn't matter whether you are "playing with the house's money" or your own. It doesn't matter whether you've paid $15, 5, or 1 a share. It doesn't matter if you bought it yesterday or five years ago, though your capital gains rate will change. All that matters is if you wouldn't buy a stock today at the current share price, you shouldn't own it regardless of what your cost basis is. Again, this isn't theory. The only caveat I will give is for taxes but that's irrelevant in this and most cases and investing based on tax decisions is a losing proposition, usually. This is one of the biggest mistakes investors (and gamblers) make.

Your cost basis/past decisions are all sunk and should not factor into your decision today. Would you go long at this price? If you would, then hold your very out of the money naked put. If you would not go long at this price given the current circumstances, then cover your naked put and move on.

Huh? Not true at all. CCME was super liquid as were the puts. They made millions and millions there, I'm sure. But all of this debating is absurdly dumb. Read the report and refute it. If you are comfortable, then buy it. But the report is a lot more than "The CEO doesn't shower every day!" Regarding the company dismissing a few of their large claims, they make probably 50 claims in the report. The company refuted 2.

Maybe he's wrong this time. He has jumped a magnitude in size for this one versus the others. In a Con game the first thing to do to make the big score is to develop credibility. The next thing is to exploit it. He may have made a few hundred grand shorting the others. This one he is probably made in the 10s of millions now. Quite worth the background work even if you are utterly full of it, wouldn't you think. Sino's track record 15 years. Muddy Waters - 7 months. I have no stake in this although I may take one. You're absolutely right, though you think it's easy being the first one to find a fraud of any market cap size let alone doing it 3 or 4 times already? CCME was a $1 Billion company, he made way more than a few hundred k. Also, the report is a lot more than "THIS IS A FRAUD!!!!!111!111!11!" There was a ton of work that went into it. There are thousands of stocks in the market. This one is probably left best alone.

They have only issued those reports. Why is that so hard to believe? I've been following them since they nailed RINO. You think they've taken down reports that didn't work? lol. I can tell you unequivocally they have not because I've been following them. Look, the market is telling you all you need to know about their legitimacy and the respect people have for them. If you think it's just a "short attack", load up - you will make a fortune when it all settles. This isn't a bank - a short report can't cause a run on it. They have no need for new capital so the stock price is not going to put them out of business. If all is well, it will rebound and then some. I have no reason to believe anything except that Muddy Waters has been correct every time the have spotted and reported on a fraud and the report is unbelievably damning.

http://www.muddywatersresearch.com/research/ They are basically batting 1000, depending on how you look at it. CCME, RINO, DGW, total frauds/zeros. ONP - disaster but still trading. All these reports came out then auditors resigned/trading was halted. They have serious credibility, hence why the stock is down so much. Nobody is forcing people to sell because of a research report.

lol @ new board members. I've been posting on here for almost a year and I have no position here. Go long and strong, friend. I could care less.

To be clear, I am not short this. But the report is really nuts and worth reading.

There is nothing hypothetical about MW track record. They have been spot on numerous times in the past, releasing reports on their website (RINO, CCME) and then the companies were shortly after proven to be frauds. I find nothing immoral or disingenuous about what they do. You know they are short when they release their report. Their reports have almost entirely proven to be true in every case thus far. RE: The cash balance, I would be very, very, careful here. The report is damning and if even a fraction of it is true the company is probably worthless. Fraud is fraud is fraud. You can't trust the cash balances.

I wouldn't put much credibility in a press release. What were they supposed to say? "You got us! We're a fraud! We'd like to be executed now, please." In regards to Muddy Waters, they have been spot on in their past reports. I'd read their report before you are quick to call them out on manipulation. It's too bad more analysts don't take the time to understand these companies like they have, billions could have been saved.

Yah that just blows my mind.

This paper did a 4 part series on him. Seems inconclusive (if I'm being nice). http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2011/05/wellingtons_millions_92_years.html

We can be sure his family didn't like him after reading the will!

Simply put, unless they paid less than MSFT's current multiple, I believe this is classic "deworsification". MSFT is classic at expanding into shit they don't have to expand into. They probably paid a huge multiple for something they didn't need. Further, the sellers are sharp PE guys. I'm sure MSFT paid a "full and rich" multiple. If the article I read is correct, they did $300 Million in operating profit (EBIT) last year so they are paying 30x ebit? Give me a break. Ditto what has been said already, EBAY dumped this thing cause it was non-core and not working. Not sure why MSFT will have any better luck or "synergies" with it.

I completely agree. Except the authors are low paid workers from Reuters and I see that kind of stuff all the time from them. This guy is: Mark Sebastian is a former market maker on both the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the American Stock Exchange. He started the popular blog Option911, which is now the Option Pit blog. Sebastian has been published in nationally on Yahoo Finance, quoted in the Wall Street Journal is a featured contributor for TheStreet.com. He also writes regularly for SFO, and OptionsZone, and is the managing editor for Expiring Monthly: The Option Traders Journal. Mark has a Bachelor’s in Science from Villanova University. His sole job is educating people on options!

You probably want to define Junior and Senior Analyst somewhere on the website, besides the difference in pay. How will you decide what bucket the applicants go in? I'm guessing it has to do with years experience but could be wrong.

That would also mean you would need an additional discount to future cash flow that won't be dividend'd out, right? I mean additional discount on top of the D in DCF. Hence why they trade at 8-12x earnings. I still think they are all cheap and good investments here - but that's the bear case.

what an awful acquisition

I think it's only a 1 man shop but he's DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION http://www.optionpit.com/about-us I've seen a lot of silly quotes in papers but this one takes the cake given his title/job.

On Citi's reverse split today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110509/bs_nm/us_citigroup_shares "Why would anybody own Citigroup when they can own JPMorgan for the same share price?" said Mark Sebastian, chief operating officer of Option Pit Mentoring, an options education firm in Chicago. "JPMorgan is a much better company. Now there is actual price risk for the stock when it wasn't at $4.50." He is COO of a company that specializes in options EDUCATION. DOH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For those of you new to the business/industry, a reverse split (or a regular split) does not change the value of a company nor does Citigroup now have "price risk" when before it didn't. Further, Citigroup and JP Morgan are not the same "price". Market cap is decided by shares outstanding X current price. The actual "price" is completely irrelevant.