At what point does the grey zone enter into the shadow lands on further into the black areas of the infinite? Is an hunting of the hedge fund manager also an indictment of the entire financial market and all it stands for, with Cohen being a tip, a protruding horn of the monster that for many has little or no underlying reality or connection to the real world of main street and the physical economy and nominal well-being of the individuals for whom the free flow of capital has little loyalty or responsibility. The language of insider trading, the lexicon of the “dark pool” has its own aesthetic dictionary that is conscious of its own emotions and sensations; one that requires a sort of willing suspension of belief in the world of the tangible and real.
Rather total indifference which is ironic in Cohen’s pursuit of valuable art, as if trying to purchase a first hand esthetic experience, by subsuming its value to that of money, to commodify emotions and sensations as the cannily real. comparative to this trading world which is also an altered state of consciousness bringing an exalted feeling of power. A dichotomy between the superior technology of trading dependent on concept and ideology for credibility as opposed to techniques that inform an artwork’s artistry. Genuine esthetic experience is rare and the product of much intensification and experience whereas as the ultimate banality of longing and shorting financial instruments based og grey zone information if not illegal insider knowledge paradoxically reduces money and what it buys such as his paintings and houses into ordinary objects, just another social phenomenon stripped down into a de-sensitized object, a mere appearance that leads us to forget what could be most memorable about it.
—The man has created a cult like mafia club who even when he kicks your rear out of his firm for one bad trade are still ultra loyal to him. I’m consistently told “No trader is ever going to try to cross Stevie Cohen”. So getting a trader like Mathew Martoma, who was arrested last week for one of the largest inside trading profits the DOJ has figure out yet,is going to be really tough for Federal prosecutors. I know as a fact Stevie became aware of the FBI investigating him personally for insider trading as far back as 2006 – based on conversations Stevie had with people I spoke with. That’s why we are seeing press reports about the number of compliance people he has at SAC because he amped up that division of the firm once he knew the feds were on to him.—painting:Robert Spencer…click image for source…
…(see link at end)…Twenty-five years later it’s all happening again. Once more a relentless U.S. attorney, this time 44-year-old Preet Bharara, has seemingly targeted the billionaire investor Steve Cohen, founder of SAC Capital Advisors, the $14 billion hedge fund based in Stamford, Connecticut. One by one, Bharara has picked off onetime SAC traders and analysts, confronting them at their homes, pulling them before grand juries, bringing criminal cases, and pressing them for evidence that Cohen has broken insider-trading laws. So far Cohen has not been charged with anything, but there is the same sense that Bharara, like Giuliani before him, has too much invested in all this to lose. “If Steve Cohen gets off,” one hedge-fund manager observes, “he will be the O. J. Simpson of insider trading.”
—No wonder Cohen has been on a shopping spree lately, including a $60 million property in the Hamptons and a Pablo Picasso painting for $155 million. He has good reason to be pleased.
When the SEC unveiled its change in approach last year, the enforcement director at the time, Robert Khuzami, said the new policy “eliminates language that may be construed as inconsistent with admissions or findings that have already been made in the criminal cases.” That’s not what happened here. By sticking to its “neither admit nor deny” boilerplate, the SEC embraced language that’s at odds with Horvath’s guilty pleas.
There’s no denying this: The SEC let Cohen and his hedge fund off easy.—Jonathan Weil
In almost every way, though, today’s scandal surpasses the one that brought the Roaring 80s to an end. There have been more arrests, many more convictions; C.E.O.’s have fallen, lives and companies have been ruined, all in a campaign that has increasingly put one man in the government’s crosshairs: Steve Cohen, thought to be the most brilliant trader of his generation.
Simply reading the headlines this spring, one could be forgiven for being a bit confused. In mid-March, after years of scoffing at every suggestion any of its traders might have done something untoward, SAC agreed to pay, without admitting guilt, the largest fine in the history of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a stunning $616 million, to settle charges of insider trading in only two trades. Some on Wall Street called it a victory for Cohen, who paid a pittance—for him—to make a messy situation go away. Others were not so sanguine, observing—correctly—that blood was finally in the water, that an S.E.C. fine did nothing to curtail the ongoing criminal investigation, which has already led to guilty pleas from and convictions of at least five onetime SAC employees.Read More:http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/06/steve-cohen-insider-trading-case
—The story, written by free-lancer Pat Jordan in the April issue of Philadelphia Magazine, was based on a two-day visit to Carlton’s 400-acre ranch near Durango, Colo., where he has lived since 1989. In the most controversial segment of the piece, Carlton discusses worldwide revolution, conspiracy theories and describes a survival shelter built underneath the house.
“One minute he’ll say, ‘The Russian and U.S. governments fill the air with low-frequency sound waves meant to control us,’ ” Jordan wrote, “and the next he’ll say, ‘The Elders of Zion rule the world,’ and then, ‘The British MI-5 and 6 intelligence agencies have ruled the world since 1812′ and ’12 Jewish bankers meeting in Switzerland rule the world’ and ‘the world is controlled by a committee of 300 which meets at a roundtable in Rome.’ “—Image: Thomas Eakins. click image for source…
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…I only know of one sloppy practice Stevie has done in the past which could set him up for a co-conspirator in securities fraud – he would have weekly calls with traders who held large positions on Sunday nights to get a status of why they are in the trade. Cohen knew his traders used expert networks and according to firms that worked with SAC he encouraged his traders to use them. Still using an expert network isn’t illegal as long as you don’t get secret material non public info from them. That’s why I’m hearing from people who have been interviewed by the Feds about Stevie that a one time criminal charge for insider trading isn’t their goal. Instead it’s a non criminal suit–they want to charge him with Civil RICO.
COMMENTS
