| Five things about rogue traders
One of the world's major banks, Societe Generale, said Thursday that an employee lost more than $7 billion in a year of secret trading. The trader, Jerome Kerviel, had to circumvent at least five layers of risk-control systems as he matched each of his investments of the bank's money in European stock futures with fictitious ones, according to the Toronto Star. .
US futures up on BHP bid, Alcoa higher
S&P 500 and Dow stock futures rose as shares of natural resources companies, including Alcoa Inc, gained after BHP Billiton disclosed it had made a bid for rival miner Rio Tinto. The BHP bid news, coming a day after Wall St suffered its worst slide in three months, helped mitigate investors' unease about credit losses at financial services companies. Comments from Cisco Systems Inc that the credit crisis was hurting the technology sector also added to worry. "We had a minor capitulation yesterday, which should lead to an early bounce in the first couple hours of trading today," Matt McCall, president of Penn Financial Group in Denver, Colorado, said. He said BHP's willingness to pay a premium for Rio and a rise in BHP's stock were bullish signals that demand for commodities was strong.
SEC stuns Stinger with suit
For years, skeptics have accused Tampa stun-gun maker Stinger Systems of pumping up its stock price with dubious claims. Now federal securities regulators are signaling their agreement. A Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit filed Monday by the agency's Atlanta division claims Stinger issued a series of false statements around the time it went public in November 2004. The alleged hype helped quadruple Stinger's stock price on its first day of trading, boosting it to a high of $48.55 within two months, a nearly 40-fold increase from the IPO price of $1.25. On Tuesday, the already-depressed company's stock plummeted 59 percent to close at 59 cents per share. In a statement, Stinger Systems said it is "optimistic that it will prevail" in court.
|
