weekender

>"If they can avoid the mistakes of Exubera they may have a winner. What diabetic wouldn't want an alternative to sticking yourself with needles several times a day?" my wife would not. she found an inhaler, not sure which one but it was a few years ago. too large and awkward to carry. her fix kit is tiny and fits into a small purse quite unobtrusively. the inhaler was the size of a bong and folded to the size of a small bong. she doesnt mind the needles so much, been doing it since 13. they are very very thin now, you can see them nearly bend under their own weight. so the pinch is not such a big deal. she would rather carry her needles and inject modestly than have a giant bong like device thats obvious too all and awkward to carry. just some anecdotes from a insulin dependent diabetic. not a commentary on the stocks themselves. (edited some typos) "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

for compliance reasons i cannot discuss individual stocks or give any market commentary. not that you are interested in my thoughts anyway, hah. I respect your enthusiasm and see you have done your due diligence. thats not sarcasm. do you have access to 13f filings? not sure if you know what they are but they are public info. it shows you who the holders are. if you respect a fund manager you can see what he owns or if he owns a stock you like. they are published every quarter by law. i suggest this because you are looking for some ideas and while they might not return your phone call you can see what they are buying and selling. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

i read the article you linked and can say this is the first ive really heard of this complaint. doubt its going anywhere. there has been a lot of chatter about the transit crack down though. most people feel sorry for the performers and churro ladies. i believe people do see it as a victim less crime. i totally understand how the police need to maintain order and while we might enjoy the music, many of them are breaking the law. many performers are legal, fyi, the city has a program that allows street performing but not all bother with the formality. i find your comment about NYC liberals losing it quite humorous. who isnt a liberal in NYC? even the heads of the biggest investment banks are Dem's. we have liberals, extreme liberals and tourists. hah. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

yes im serious although my response was meant to be tongue in cheek about regulators. which i mentioned on my second post. he sounded like a promoter. anyone who is involved seriously in the markets is pestered by these people and they have a very distinct style. his was very similar. since he is soliciting responses i suggested he use less hype in his posts. its going to turn off a lot of people he might like to hear from. what was i trying to accomplish? i was suggesting he would get more sincere input from quality posters if they believed his solicitation was genuine and not just an attempt to hype his own position. not sure how that is illogical or ridiculous. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

there is a very distinct style that promoters use and your writing style is very similar. over the years i have gotten many of their solicitations and at first i thought that was what you were doing. i know you are not but that was the first impression. my point is not you will get in trouble, i was kinda kidding about that. its that because of your style you will turn off alot of experienced investors from your thread. the kind of people you might actually being trying to get input from. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Stock promoting is frowned upon by the regulators. Your comments on MNKD might sound innocent to you but sent up a giant red flag in my brain when i read them. you should work on phrasing because you sound like a promoter which will turn off many investors and turn on the regulators. MNKD is a legit company that trades on the nasdaq gm market. listing requirements are less than the select but still it proves its a legit company. so i know your comments are sincere but thought id give you some friendly advice since your soliciting opinions. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

when you tire of making reasonable, moderate comments, you will be missed. by the way, I heard the Koch brothers are behind the chemtrails and orbital mind control lasers. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

I agree with a lot of your apathy towards this story but disagree with your opinion on mutual aid. Ft Lee is basically an island due to its location on the river and proximity to the GWB entrance, Rt 9 and other roads i cannot name but have nightmares of. Its a mess on a good day. Its also in one of most densely populated parts of the US and not a poor backwater. my point is, they are aware of mutual aid, have procedures in place and its humorous that you do not think they have. Its metropolitan NY, they are not naive about emergency services. Bottom line is, its very very dense. far more than you seem to understand. traffic jams can cause a complete gridlock and there are no back roads or shortcuts as you seem to imply. dispatching someone from Palisades Park or Englewood would do nothing more than put them into gridlock too. (Edit to add: i live in Bergen County, work in the city and am a third generation volunteer firefighter. just so you know where my opinions are coming from and that they are based on local knowledge.) "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

you are missing the bigger picture. Christy is a Republican gov in a very Democratic state that is run by the Dem party from Bergen County. the wealthiest most powerful county in the state. FT Lee is in Bergen County. He pissed of the Dem's from day one and the bridge closing was an opportunity for pay back and take away some of his power. its worked and his own fault. None of that explains the national attention until you factor in his designs on the White House. So now the national Democratic party see's and opportunity to bash him. had he not considered a national run, this would not have been national news and no one here would have cared. it would have been another story of a corrupt NJ Pol abusing his power. im guessing it would have been a week long news cycle. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

WSJ has a nice piece out agreeing with you. removing if he is right or wrong on if HLF being a pyramid scheme, its improper to use your influence to get a politician to spark an investigation. sure, its very common for one business to try to get the gov't to investigate a competitor for unfair trade practices. in this case, he is an activist investor. not apples to apples. Originally, i was solely on Bill A's side. as more data comes in i'm leaning more towards its looking fishy. i have confidence in the SEC and FINRA to sort this out. I dont know him personally but its a small business and ive always admired his ability and tended to ignore his critics as jealous. I'm starting to agree with you, the NYT and now the WSJ. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

your not alone feeling that way. many people do not like active short sellers. if you are known to be shorting a stock it is nearly impossible to get a management meeting. if your buying the stock, much easier. people who run a company take it very personal, as they should. i understand their position even though i might seem like i do not. I am not emotional about math. it helps me make hard decisions quickly. i am aware that many times that can make me and my peers seem cold and indifferent to the company's we are trading but that is the point. i am paid to provide liquidity. for me they are letters and numbers. i let management run the company and analyst make predictions. once someone makes a decision to buy, sell or short, i provide them the liquidity with no bias. figure, id explain a little why sometimes i seem to be rather indifferent to these things. i get the sense alot of people here think im a monster, hah. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

9/11 thing is an urban legend. feel free to prove me wrong. i have no idea about the thing they found out last year.... not saying it isnt true, just no idea what your talking about. If Bill A is right and HLF is a pyramid scheme that hurts poor minorities its good he using his influence to get them investigated. the fact he might benefit from it upsets the NYT. i would believe they are sincere in their outrage if they showed the same outrage to Al Gore getting rich saving the planet. if it is ok because he is saving the planet then shouldnt it be ok if Bill A gets rich helping poor minorities? politics are a bore. both sides dont want the other to spend money on their causes. also, the NYT hates hedge fund managers and loves Al Gore. again, boring. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

another aspect of the story. sorry, i had to say that. IMO, a more in depth description of the story. Bill A looks less like a monster when the story is accurately reported. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303730804579435303342418222?KEYWORDS=hlf&mg=reno64-wsj "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

>"The improvement in liquidity I can see though. Out of curiosity, do the major markets track/report trade volume broken up by short or long sales?" you can find the short interest on equities. all short trades must be marked as such and they calculate the interest based on this data. so short answer, yes. long answer- short positions are not on the 13f filings as they do not need to be reported. so you need to do your due diligence to estimate the true short interest at any given time. this is because naked shorts, which are illegal, are NOT reported. for obvious reasons. our markets are very well regulated but some foreign exchanges have different priorities. this enables people to put on naked shorts that are not reported in the short interest data. so, you need to do some detective work to get a most accurate idea of short interest in a name. hope that answers your question. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

i was answering another gentleman's question. so my post was relevant to his question specifically but yes. i do believe it is within the spirit of this thread also. Bill A is an activist investor. he takes a position so he can influence management. this is common and perfectly legal and ethical. its more common on the long side for sure. he has always believed the company is taking advantage of poor people and overwhelmingly poor minorities. he is so confident the company's business practices are improper and will eventually affect the stock price that he has chosen a short position. No, i do not think he is doing anything wrong. so far, the gov't is only investigating HLF for criminal acts and not him. so they seem to agree with me. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

thanks. i was worried about being too granular but you make an excellent point and a good job of explaining it. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

my bank provides the capital to start and build companies. have you ever used anything from a public company? additionally we are highly involved in municipal finance. we enable people to have bridges, highways, hospitals, airports, trains etc... sometimes we even provide the capital for gov't to continue to operate, make salaries and pensions payments. i suppose none of those things provide useful functions in your eyes but most people appreciate them. ok, so i got that off my chest. if your are sincerely asking me a question, ill answer. if you are solely insulting me, stop reading here. you can google the mechanics of selling stock short. so ill skip the mechanics. stock fluctuate up and down. in order for a fair and orderly market you need a buyer for every seller. short sellers provide liquidity to the market and additionally the fee they pay to long holders increases their return and provides a hedge for downturns. all a positive for the financial markets. short selling is an attempt to benefit from a downturn in a stock not destroy the value. it is illegal to attempt to affect the price of any stock, up or down. its called manipulation and very easy to detect. the NYT feels Bill A is attempting to do this. i dont agree but its up to FINRA and the SEC to decide. selling short has no more impact on stock price than selling long. also, historically stocks go up so short selling is more risky than a long. additionally, when they buy to cover they provide liquidity on that side too. liquidity is the key to a fair and orderly market, so again a good thing. i welcome short sellers when i need to buy stock. they provide the liquidity so i do not have to take a stock higher. they provide a very usefull function and i do not see how they damage the economy or even stock price. some people believe stocks are going one way, some believe they are going the other. they meet in the middle and everyone is happy. If you purposely try to manipulate stock price. you can be fined, sanctioned and even charged with a crime. i support strong market regulations. i see nothing wrong with short selling and glad they are there to help make a better market. i said all of that with a straight face, fyi. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Though it's possible this is really about conservatives hating EVs, the more plausible explanation is that NADA contributes over 10M/year to federal races while Tesla does not. Distributors (be it cars or alcohol) fight hard to protect their advantage. i agree. NJ is a very liberal state with a moderate Republican governor. This story is about dealers monopoly and Tesla trying to break it. Tesla wants to sell direct to the public and dealers want to create new dealerships. I do not see this about liberal verse conservative. this is NJ politics at its best. one very powerful group wanting to retain their control over a market. Can't you just hear the rage from conservatives who have their core values undermined by Christie? i live in Bergen County NJ, so i do not know any conservatives. i imagine they would support Christie because he is sticking up for NJ companies over a hippie California green company. Of course, REAL conservatives dont like Christie because he is a Pres Obama loving RINO. general rule of thumb, a NJ Republican is a Democrat in any other state, hah. NJ is a very old state with a lot of powerful special interests and way too many politicians, which makes it worse. every little town has a mayor, city manager and city council. i did a quick count and Bergen County has 70 gov'ts in only 240 sq miles. thats only one county. with that many politicians the state is always a mess. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

13:39 HLF Confirms received today a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Stock was held and as i type its down 10% on the news. so two ways to look at this. HLF is being investigated because their business practices merit one OR if you are the NYT or hate Bill A, he paid off the feds to push the stock down to make himself more rich. one seems more plausible to me and i'm sure im in the minority on this site with that opinion. Carl Icahn, your move, sir. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

Though it's possible this is really about conservatives hating EVs, the more plausible explanation is that NADA contributes over 10M/year to federal races while Tesla does not. Distributors (be it cars or alcohol) fight hard to protect their advantage. i agree. NJ is a very liberal state with a moderate Republican governor. This story is about dealers monopoly and Tesla trying to break it. Tesla wants to sell direct to the public and dealers want to create new dealerships. I do not see this about liberal verse conservative. this is NJ politics at its best. one very powerful group wanting to retain their control over a market. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

my response on human trafficking was relevant to the post i replied too, which was about consensual prostitution and those who oppose it. i understand you are not interested in the actual content of my post. i get it, according to you i am judgmental and think i'm better than the rest of humanity. if you feel that way, and have no interest in the actual meaning of my comments, feel free to skip them. it will save you the time of posting an off topic insult of my character. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

My apologies, as you were clearly complimentary of them as a whole. let me reword that for you. they do not look like slaves. they look like normal stripper types. so i bet they are not victims but girls working at the bunny ranch of their own free will. that was my point. all my posts are about human trafficking and how its sad. you take offense to my meaningless comments about how prostitutes at the bunny ranch look and decide im high minded. you really missed the point. if its arrogant to feel sorry for human slaves, then i suppose i am. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

i dont know how you got that from my comments. i dont believe that i am taking a high ground position for believing that human trafficking is awful. i agreed that if you can prove its truly consensual, as in the bunny ranch, im not against it. my belief is that its quite often not the case. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

The context here is the Bunny Ranch however, and when it comes to prostitution in Nevada, it appears to be consenting and victim less. And if you can believe the stated prices on the various HBO shows, a bigger ripoff than bitcoins @ $1000. i agree. i stated that in an earlier post that they looked like middle class girls with daddy issues. i drifted to the human trafficking comments in a reaction to another poster who implied only fools and prudes are against prostitution. I disagree with that. since so much of it involves human trafficking. im no prude and my mother told me i'm smart. i work in a business that has been known to expense girls for customers. i just dont think people should be so cavalier with the victim less comments. not when there are so many documented victims. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante

It's in part an illustration of the difference between legalized prostitution and what you get when it's outside regulated business. That said, I don't have great faith that legalization would eliminate the trafficking plight. BTW, if we want to talk about grade A D bags....Dennis Hof- owner of the bunny ranch - is a prime specimen. I think it would reduce (but not eliminate) the trafficking problems. Prohibition just isn't working here either. i dont pretend to have the answers. i dont think, in the USA, legalization will prevent human trafficking. it offends me as a reasonably minded person when people imply prostitution is between consenting adults and is victim less. I know it can be, im quite well traveled and not naive. in my life experience, and the NYT agrees with me, it is not normally though. until it is, i will not endorse it as a profession in the USA. "The point is, I'm weird, but I never felt weird." John Frusciante