Is Cynk a short-seller trap? Maybe? I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/?search=naked cam don't know. I guess not? But wouldn't it be cool if it was? I confess I had a feeling that not all was right with Cynk Technologies. Just a hunch that I had, that I mentioned repeatedly here and here and on Twitter and on television and to strangers on the subway. Something about a company with no revenues and a brilliant but undeveloped business model (buy friends on the Internet! friends not included) having a $4, 5, 6, whatever billion dollar market cap struck me as fishy. This morning the Securities and Exchange Commission halted trading in Cynk "because of concerns regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace and potentially manipulative transactions in CYNK’s common stock." So I guess I was right? Everyone was right! I mean everyone who said anything about Cynk this week said either umm this looks like a pump-and-dump scam, or umm this looks "overvalued," or "frothy," or like a "sign of a new tech bubble," or some other euphemism for pump-and-dump scam. Good job, everyone! A weird fun fact is that even after lots and lots of media outlets fretted about Cynk on Wednesday, and the stock briefly dropped Thursday morning, it then kept rising for a while, reaching a peak of $21.95 per share -- a $6.4 billion market cap! -- just before noon yesterday. That peak came over an hour after Bloomberg TV expressed on-air skepticism, over 12 hours after Zero Hedge expressed online skepticism, over three weeks after Seeking Alpha published a post titled "CYNK Technology: Promoters Push Market Cap To $655 Million Despite $39 In Assets And No Revenue; 100% Downside," and, y'know, three months after Cynk decided to stop publishing financial statements. So this is not a great case for the power of financial media, or of market efficiency, at least in penny stocks. Here is one theory for why not, from Seeking Alpha. I have no idea if it's true, and I suspect it is at least not the whole explanation for Cynk's rapid and imperturbable rise. 1 But it's beautiful, and I'm going to describe it to you in simplified form because for what do we live but to contemplate beautiful financial scams? First, though, here is a traditional pump-and-dump, in schematic form: You and I start a company. It issues 300 million shares, 150 million to me and 150 million to you, for no consideration. The company has no assets, does nothing, and is worth $0. On Monday, I sell you 10,000 shares for $1 each. All of a sudden we have a $300 million company. On Tuesday, you sell me back those 10,000 shares for $2 each. Now we have a $600 million company. On Wednesday, we find some suckers and say "hey, this $600 million company is poised to take off! It was up 100 percent just yesterday! Get in while there's still value!" The suckers, being suckers, buy 100,000 shares for $2 each. Now we have $200,000 of the suckers' money, which we split. We flee to, I don't know, Belize. This is a good scam. (I mean, super illegal obviously. But otherwise.) People have been running this scam for centuries, "everyone" knows about it, the SEC warns about it constantly, but you can still sometimes find some people who don't know about it and who fall for it. Here is a schematic version of the scam that Seeking Alpha describes: You and I start a company, it issues us 300 million shares, I sell you 10,000 shares at $1, you sell me 10,000 shares at $2, and we have a $600 million company. We don't even try to find outside suckers to buy the stock because, come on, everyone knows about pump-and-dump scams. Instead, on Wednesday, we make some of our shares available to brokers to lend out for short sales. Clever short sellers, who read Seeking Alpha and Zero Hedge and finance Twitter and watch Bloomberg TV, are like "well this is obviously a pump-and-dump scam and can't really be worth $600 million, come on. But of course you can never short those things, there's no stock borrow and it's illegal to do naked short selling. Oh wait -- there's stock borrow here! And it's cheap!" So the clever short sellers borrow and sell 100,000 shares of stock at $2 each, hoping to profit when it crashes to zero. By hypothesis, there are no buyers. But we buy. We buy those 100,000 shares for $2 each, laying out $200,000. 2 Now we own 300.1 million shares, out of 300 million outstanding. 3 On Thursday we go to our brokers and say "you know what, we changed our minds, we want our stock back from whoever you loaned it to." 4 So the brokers call in the short sales. The short sellers can't borrow the stock anywhere else. We own it all. So they have to close out their short sales by buying in the stock. But they can't buy the stock anywhere else either. We own it all. So they have to buy it from us. How much do we charge? Yeah, $15. Or $20 or whatever, I don't know. We can charge whatever we want. If the short sellers don't buy the stock, they're breaking the law. So they'll pay whatever we ask. 5 They pay $20 to buy back the shares they sold us at $2, making us a $1.8 million profit. Belize. What is so pretty about this scheme is that it doesn't rely on anyone being wrong. 6 You never need to find an outside investor to say, "oh hey this nonexistent social network looks like a great buy at $600 million." Instead you just need a few people to say, "wait this nonexistent social network seems terribly overvalued at $600 million and I am going to bet against it." That's ... that's what they're supposed to do, right? Short sellers are supposed to try to root out scams and bet against them. That's good for price efficiency (it keeps down the valuation of scams) and it's good for exposing scams (short sellers have every incentive to expose frauds to the government to drive down the price of the frauds and make money for themselves). But the "good" short sellers here get hammered, more even than regular pump-and-dump suckers do. I mean, they get hammered in the theoretical story that I just told. They definitely got hammered in the real world of Cynk: Whether or not that story accurately describes Cynk's trading, it does seem (via Zero Hedge) that at least one person is short Cynk, unable to cover now that trading is halted, and paying 12 percent interest to his broker while Cynk is in limbo. 7 And whether or not the schematic story that I told above is true about Cynk, it's relevant to future incentives. If you spot what you think is a penny stock pump-and-dump scam, don't short it! It might be a trap! 8 Just let the price stay inflated and let other suckers keep buying. Last month my Bloomberg View colleague Noah Smith wrote a post arguing that short sellers are socially useful, and laying out the many obstacles that they confront -- including that "dealers generally have the ability to recall a stock loan at any time" so short sellers "might lose money even though [they] were right." He called for easing restrictions on short selling, and for "centralized exchanges for lending stock shares." I asked at the time: Isn't that actually a case for allowing naked short selling, in which short sellers sell stock without borrowing it first? If you don't have to borrow stock, you don't run the risk of losing your borrow, and you can short safely. This is good for price efficiency and for exposing frauds. I don't know that I entirely endorse allowing naked short selling; I suppose there's an argument that unrestricted naked shorting would allow increased opportunities for fraud and manipulation, 9 and it would be administratively complicated and just sort of all-around creepy. 10 But next time you see a crackdown on people who short stock without borrowing it, spare them a little sympathy. There are worse things than naked short selling. This might be one of them! This is really based only on a pure hunch; for all I know it could be exactly right. I just -- there are a lot of trades, the company probably has some outside shareholders, there's some capital intensity to the scheme described here, I don't know. On the other hand, yes, stock borrow costs in Cynk do seem to have once been lower and then been higher, which is consistent with this scheme. In any case, what happened in Cynk is not as simple and elegant as I describe in the text. Alternatively, there are outside buyers. This is good for us since we don't have to actually stump up the $200,000, but makes the rest of it more complicated and probabilistic since the long shares are not all in our hands. The simpler form is in the text, where we are the only buyers, but we can't really control that, it's a public market. Less pure versions of this scheme should also mostly work though. This is fine by the way. Happens all the time. See footnote 6 here. We can do this because regular-way stock borrow is an overnight transaction, so we can change our minds any time. Seeking Alpha describes a scheme in which we raise the stock borrow fee, earning us some income, rather than just calling in the borrow outright, but I've elided that for simplicity. Incidentally, this reminds me of a beautiful short squeeze that Phil Falcone once ran, not for motives of fraud or profit, but just out of spite. Falcone learned that a broker was shorting some bonds -- called "MAAX zips" -- in which Falcone had a position, and he felt that that was rude. So Falcone bought more than all of the outstanding MAAX zips (that is: all of them, plus some extra that the broker was shorting). Then he called in the borrow on them: 73. Sometime in the spring of 2007, Harbinger, at Falcone’s direction, paid off the debt in its margin account and demanded that the Wall Street firm return any securities it had borrowed, including MAAX zips. … 83. At some point, the conversation turned to the trading in the MAAX bonds. The senior officer asked Falcone how the Wall Street firm might satisfy its obligation to Harbinger. Falcone stated that the Wall Street firm should just keep bidding for the bonds. Falcone acknowledged that the Wall Street firm would suffer some losses doing so, but told the senior officer and the others that sometimes you are just on the wrong side of a trade. 84. In the course of this discussion, Falcone stated that he knew that the short position in the MAAX zips had created a “long” position in excess of the issue size. When the senior officer asked how he could possibly know this, Falcone stated that he was working the position himself and that he (i.e., Harbinger) had acquired approximately 190 million bonds. The senior officer and the other the Wall Street firm personnel were stunned. Just keep bidding, buddy. Just keep bidding. Though of course you can combine it with a traditional pump-and-dump: Nothing stops you from working both angles at the same time, except that if you sell enough shares to outsiders you run the risk that they will lend (or sell) their shares to the short sellers and undercut the short-selling scam. (See footnote 2.) Which, honestly, 12 percent, not that bad. Could be 600 percent. Not investment advice blah blah blah. Probably just never think about penny stocks, is my personal lifestyle advice. I think, though, that those arguments are mostly overblown. In particular most people who complain about naked short selling frauds are hopelessly confused. Naked short selling, in practice, is a stock-borrow scam, not a price manipulation scam; if you got rid of borrow requirements you'd get rid of borrow scams. I am not fully confident, though, that there'd be no additional mischief with unrestricted naked shorting. Particularly: If you could just "create" shares of stock to short, and sell them fungibly with other shares, who would get to vote the stock? Incidentally I owe this and other points in this post to conversations with pseudonymous finance blogger Kid Dynamite. This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg View's editorial board or Bloomberg LP, its owners and investors.
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OTTAWA—A https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=naked cam Canadian lawmaker left red-cheeked after appearing stark naked on a House of Commons Zoom conference call has apologized to his colleagues. William Amos, a Liberal MP, was caught covering his nether regions with a mobile phone and in a state of nature between the flags of Quebec and Canada when his laptop camera turned on during the virtual session. “I made a really unfortunate mistake today & obviously I’m embarrassed by it,” the 46-year-old tweeted late Wednesday after the incident in his office was made public. “My camera was accidentally left on as I changed into work clothes after going for a jog. I sincerely apologize to all my colleagues in the House. It was an honest mistake + it won’t happen again.” The Quebec MP did not address the virtual session, which was in the questioning period at the time, but he would have been in breach of the House of Commons guidebook if he had chosen to do so while in a state of undress. No dress code Under the section “Rules of Order and Decorum,” no dress code is required to sit it on a debate, but male speakers “must be wearing contemporary business attire,” such as jackets, shirts and ties. His mishap was only shown on an internal House of Commons feed, leaving the Canadian public initially unaware that one of their representatives had turned up in his birthday suit. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who leads Amos’ Liberal party, is yet to comment on the incident. Point of order But opposition party whip Claude DeBellefeuille raised the accidental flash in the cam as a point of order, reminding lawmakers they must cover themselves at all times. “It may be necessary to remind the members, especially the male ones, that a tie and jacket are obligatory, but so are a shirt, boxer shorts or pants,” she said in French, according to the Canadian Press. “We have seen that the member is in great physical shape, but I think members should be reminded to be careful and control the camera well.” —AFP I have been reporting on adult webcams since this website started http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=naked cam nearly a decade ago. The main players are all still around even if a couple of them seem to be a lot less popular now than they were in the past. Another change has been the rise of new competition. There’s always room for more naked women so I am happy to welcome Stripcamfun to the scene. 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One plus one equals two. At the end of the day money is at the root of much of our lives. Not just the evil parts either. Since I see nothing wrong with naked bodies or consensual sex I am of course fine with it all. In fact I am a big fan of adult entertainment myself. If it is alright to pay a woman to clean my teeth or massage my back I don’t see the problem with paying a woman who offers to get naked and spread her legs for my titillation. We’re constantly told that we are in a service economy. What better service is there than making other people happy and satisfied? If food is the way to a man’s heart than a nice pair of tits is the way to his pleasure center. I don’t have to tell you where that is located. But it’s not far from his wallet. Love it or hate it this is in fact the way the modern world works. I am glad that I am able to pull up a seemingly unlimited supply of naked women who are willing to show off everything for horny guys like me. That sure helps pass the time even in this era of uncertainty. Or perhaps especially in this period! With countless models on display at all hours there is something for everyone with a hard on over at Strip Cams. They’ve even got gay males and ladyboys for those who are into that. I am personally quite satisfied watching hot naked gals work themselves over. I’m even quite alright with solo Milf webcams. But I do have to admit that I like watching some live sex shows too from time to time. I am know I am not alone in this. That’s why so many people come here to read reports on the commercial sex industry around the world. It is in fact a very large industry with many facets. One of the largest and most profitable areas is the live cam avenue. After watching even one or two broadcasters in the buff it is quite easy to see why. China tells http://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=naked cam rich polluting nations to change lifestyle BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said rich nations must abandon their “unsustainable lifestyle” to fight climate change and expand help to poor nations bearing the brunt of worsening droughts and rising sea levels. Wen told the opening of a conference Friday the financial crisis was no reason for rich nations to delay fighting global warming. “As the global financial crisis spreads and worsens, and the world economy slows down apparently, the international community must not waver in its determination to tackle climate change,” Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying. The two-day meeting is to push China’s call for rich nations to fund a huge infusion of greenhouse gas-cutting technology for developing countries. But foreign officials at the meeting raised doubts about Beijing’s proposal, which could stoke contention over who pays and how much. China is widely believed to be the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from industry, power plants and vehicles lifting global temperatures. But Wen threw the onus back on rich nations, with their much higher emissions per person and long history of polluting the air. “Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle,” he told the meeting. Chinese officials have said wealthy nations should divert as much as 1 percent of their economic worth to paying for clean technology transfers and helping the Third World overcome damage from the rising temperatures bringing more heatwaves and droughts, more powerful storms and rising sea levels. This would mean a total $284 billion a year if members of the Organization for Cooperation and Economic Development (OECD) paid up based on the size of their economies in 2007. Over 190 nations have agreed to seek a new treaty to curtail greenhouse gases from industry, vehicles and land-clearing. China wants technology aid to feature in that pact, which negotiators hope to seal in Copenhagen late next year. HOW TO PAY FOR IT? Climate officials gathered in Beijing welcomed China’s growing activism on the issue but questioned its proposal, especially with an economic downturn draining coffers. “It is undeniable that the financial crisis will have an impact on the climate change negotiations,” said Yvo de Boer, who heads the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. “If we go to citizens under the current circumstances ... and say ‘I’m increasing your tax burden in order to pay for climate policy’, that might not go down very well,” he told Reuters. Denmark’s Climate Change Minister, Connie Hedegaard, who is helping guide negotiations leading to Copenhagen, said other governments wanted to see what China offers in future emissions goals in return for help and big emissions cuts by rich nations. Few rich nations have lived up to vows to give a sliver of their GDPs to development aid, giving little hope for any similar approach to climate change, she said in an interview. “I think we will not be able to do this at an adequately big scale unless we also activate market forces,” she said of technology transfers. But Beijing will wait to see what U.S. President-elect Barack Obama offers in greenhouse gas goals and aid before showing more of its own bargaining cards, said Hedegaard. “I definitely believe that behind the scenes things are being prepared and analysed,” she said of China. “But I take it that China, as we all do, will await the new signals coming out of Washington.” Aaron Carter has bared all on his latest business venture, as the singer http://edition.cnn.com/search/?text=naked cam made his porn debut on Cam Soda on Friday night. The I Want Candy star, 32, had teased his first appearance on the adult site earlier in the day, telling his fans: ‘It’s my first time! Check me out live tonight @camsoda 9pm PST #camsoda #cammodel.’ During his first live broadcast, Aaron shot scenes in his shower as well as his bedroom, where he was at one point seen sitting on his bed naked, playing the guitar. His debut on the adult cam site comes four months after his fiancée Melanie Martin first appeared on there herself. Ahead of the broadcast, a rep for CamSoda had told Page Six that Aaron would ‘eat bananas teasingly and peel some with his feet’ during the https://allizon.com performance. ‘He will also masturbate for a live audience for the first time ever.’ @aaroncarter was my first concert and now the first cam model I’ve tipped to watch their show🤣🤣— Gem Thinks Black Lives Matter Stoned ✊ðŸ¼âœŠðŸ½âœŠðŸ¿ (@Gem_Stoned) September 5, 2020 I have now also paid to see Aaron in concert…well my parents paid xD and now I have tipped to see his cam show, I am gonna let my mom know about it for sure lmao— snugzmeow (@Snugzmeow) September 5, 2020 If you’re a “sex work is real work†tweeter, but then also make fun of Aaron Carter for doing camming then you are a h y p o c r i t e.— Sassy Travis (@SassyTravis) September 5, 2020 Some of Aaron’s long-time fans tuned in to watch his CamSoda debut, tweeting: ‘@aaroncarter was my first concert and now the first cam model I’ve tipped to watch their show’. Another added: ‘I have now also paid to see Aaron in concert…well my parents paid xD and now I have tipped to see his cam show, I am gonna let my mom know about it for sure lmao’. |