More corruption from 9/11 Commission: stock gains not linked

[malatesta1137]

There were only advanced sales of stocks from American and United, but not Delta (hmmmm interesting). And this article claims the commission attributes them to an 'unidentified' U.S. institutional investor with absolutely NO ties to al-Qaeda. If the investor has no ties with al-Qaeda, why not reveal his/her identity? Maybe because it's one the members sitting on this marvelous commission? I wouldn't be terribly surprised.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/local/chi-0407230347jul23,0,832326.story?coll=sfla-business-front

The commission said an unidentified U.S. institutional investor "with no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda" bought 95 percent of UAL put options on Sept. 6, when volume soared, as part of a trading strategy that also saw it buy shares of AMR. The panel attributed a sharp climb in AMR put options volume on Sept. 10 to a recommendation in an options-trading newsletter.

The commission said investigators at the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies "devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue," with the help of foreign governments.

The SEC said it examined more than 9.5 million transactions involving 103 companies in various industries, along with trading in several index products.

"We did not develop any evidence suggesting that anyone who had advance knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks traded on the basis of that information," the SEC said in a statement.

[PoliticsSportsMusic]

1. This is huge....to me absolute proof they LIHOP.....n/t

[NecessaryOnslaught]

2. 100%--Grade A

[malatesta1137]

3. watch out Cynthia

you're going to get hit!

[NecessaryOnslaught]

5. Oops.

Let me move her. Sorry Cynthia. :) :hi:

[Mr_Spock]

6. LOL, first thought I had too!

Poor Cynthia

[dflprincess]

4. Not only no Delta

but I've never heard that Northwest stock was involved. Only American and United...how can that not be a smoking gun?

[Minstrel Boy]

7. The circular reasoning goes this way:

There's no smoking gun here, because the stock transactions involved an established US institutional investor, so it had nothing to do with al Qaeda and 9/11.

Really, that's how the information is processed. Unless the trail leads to a cave in Afghanistan, it means nothing. There is absolutely zero accommodation for the proposition that American institutional investors could have profited, even as Riggs blows up in Jonathan Bush's face for having laundered terrorists' funds.

[pschoeb]

8. You guys are missing the most important point

"The commission said an unidentified U.S. institutional investor "with no conceivable ties to Al Qaeda" bought 95 percent of UAL put options on Sept. 6, when volume soared, as part of a trading strategy that also saw it buy shares of AMR."

So this institutional investor BOUGHT large amounts of regular shares for AMR on Sept 6, at the same time it then hedged them with put options on UAL. So in fact they probably made no money and quite likely lost money on the whole transaction. Hardly a sign of foreknowledge, but does show you why large institutional investors often hedge their large investments to protect against horrific losses from unforeseen events.

It's called Market Neutral Long/Short Equity Trading

[NecessaryOnslaught]

9. According to Professor Howard L. Simons

no regular shares were bought.

----------
"I looked in vain at all surrounding months and strikes for anything that could have qualified as the other leg of a legitimate strategy. Only the puts were active, and volatility clearly was skewed toward the put side. Said simply, the trade was a heavy bet that those stocks were headed for a fall. The buyer of the AMR puts on Sept. 10 was willing to pay a substantial volatility premium for the privilege of executing the order.

Option market makers tend to live for such volatility discrepancies. Normally, the high put volatility for the AMR October $30 put would lead to the following trade pair:

Sell the overpriced natural put at 52.8%.
Sell AMR stock and buy the October $30 call, a combination called a synthetic put, at 48.5%.
That trade didn't happen, and neither did the parallel trade for the UAL options on Sept. 6. This stands as testimony to the normal low volume and illiquidity of these option contracts. Such volume in these options should have set alarm bells clanging immediately.

Similar evidence also exists that the terrorists were shorting aerospace company Boeing , insurers such as AIG, Citigroup , brokerages such as Merrill Lynch, and hotel companies such as Hilton and Starwood , among others. Overseas insurers like Munich Re also saw unusual trading in their options in Europe."


http://www.thestreet.com/comment/futures/10001556.html

[pschoeb]

10. He is talking about something different

He only looked at options traded, not on regular stock trades. So he failed to notice a possible balance in the trades. He looked at call-option volume and put-option volume, but did not look at regular stock trading volume for UAL and AMR.

The institutional trader was only involved in the UAL puts. They bought REGULAR stock, not options for their AMR investment.

Also he might have looked for trading in common stock as balance for puts, but only in the coresponding company, this is a regular form of common stock hedge called, Married Put Strategy. so UAL puts and UAL common stock in combination.

A Market neutral hedge means you place the puts as hedge in a different company in the same market. so UAL puts and AMR common stock. This would be harder to look for because theorically the balalnce could be any major airline.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

11. So you are saying..

that the said institutional trader lost more money on his purchase of regular AMR shares than he made on his purchase of put options on UAL?
Based on what?

If this institutional trader only bought put options on UAL, then who bought puts on AMR, Meryll Lynch, AIG, Citigroup, and several companies with insurance contracts for the trade center?

[pschoeb]

17. Based on the article saying both were bought and it was a trading strategy

They probably broke even, or possibly made a little bit of money, depending on the diferences in drops in UAL and AMR stock. Hopefully there will be more information put out, like exactly how many shares of common stock were purchased.

Also the article say institutional investor, which is not always the same as a trader. For example pension funds and foundations would be considered an Instituitional Investor, but not what one would classify as a trading firm.

On the AMR puts, I'm not sure I totally buy the explanantion. Which was that AMR put options were a recomendation of some recent option trading magazine.

I added more to my previous post in an edit after you responded.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

21. I appreciate your points..

but I fail to see how you fail to see a pattern here. We are not talking about one or two companies affected by the attacks, but many, many companies financially affected by attacks ,all with anomalous put options purchased in the 2 weeks before the attacks.

[malatesta1137]

13. The most important point is:

"Tribune research had put the potential profits from the UAL options trading alone at more than $4 million."

That's United only. I don't believe in 'innocuous' coincidences. Trace the stock sales to whoever profited from them and you'll have your 9/11 perpetrators.

[goclark]

16. Right= Follow the Money n/t

[pschoeb]

18. But the article say the UAL put purchaser

also purchased AMR common stock at the same time, as a trading strategy. Usually these strategies involve buying equal quantities. So they made $4 million on the puts, but probably lost most of this from the drop in price of their AMR common stock. So in fact though the puts made money, the instituition probably did not.

[scarletwoman]

14. $2.5 million in PROFITS unclaimed

Check it out:

Suspicious profits sit uncollected
Airline investors seem to be lying low
Saturday, September 29, 2001

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128.DTL

Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.

The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors -- whose identities and nationalities have not been made public -- had advance knowledge of the strikes.

"Usually, if someone has a windfall like that, you take the money and run," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Whoever did this thought the exchange would not be closed for four days.

"This smells real bad."

The source and others in the financial industry speculate that the purchaser or purchasers -- having initially assumed the money could be picked up without detection -- now fear exposure, or that the account has been frozen.

The markets were closed for four days after the attack, giving investigators time to notice the anomalous trades.

(more at link)

sw

[pschoeb]

19. The UAL put options were October options

Meaning they could be exercised until the third friday of October. Since UAL prices looked like they were still dropping, one wouldn't want to exercise the option until near to the expiration. This article was written well before these put options expiration. It's hardly unusual for someone to wait on exercising their put options while prices are still dropping.

[librechik]

12. I can only think of one institutional investor whose links to AlQ are

"inconceivable"

Israeli interests.

[scarletwoman]

15. DO check out the entries on this topic at the Cooperative Research site!

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a090601shorts

And Mike Ruppert -- whatever you may think of him -- has some VERY interesting information here:

http://www.hereinreality.com/insidertrading.html

sw

[EndElectoral]

20. So you're saying this unidentified gets the dough?

Unbelievable.

Is there a way to trace this down?

I mean somebody made a huge profit. Is there a way to access who made this move? My guess is it is someone attached to government.

[Fusions_Minion]

22. kiCK

[NecessaryOnslaught]

23. Sums of money moved through WTC computers

before the attack.

"An unexplained surge in transactions was recorded prior to the attacks, leading to speculation that someone might have profited from previous knowledge of the terrorist plot by moving sums of money. But because the facilities of many financial companies processing the transactions were housed in New York's World Trade Center, destroyed in the blasts, it has until now been impossible to verify that suspicion."

http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/12/20/wtc.harddrives.idg/

How did these profiteers know the computers would be destroyed, thus destroying the record of these transactions?