The United States Oil Fund: A Way to Short The Market? -02/19/09 at 6:34 PM CSTby Reggie Abaca

With fewer people working in the United States, fewer people have been driving.  It had been assumed that this would cause a new trend of falling consumption of oil, as was the case in the early 1980's.  But hold on there.  Oil prices shot up on Thursday after government data showed that oil inventories unexpectedly fell and consumption may...

Email Exposes Short Seller Plot to Destroy Public Company, Fairfax Fi... -02/17/09 at 11:33 PM CSTby Mark Mitchell

A few years ago, a clique of influential journalists went to extraordinary lengths to cover up the problem of illegal short selling. In the face of indisputable data and evidence, the journalists insisted, over and over, that “naked” short selling (hedge funds manipulating stock prices by flooding the market with phantom stock) rarely occurred...

Will K-Swiss Pull a Skechers on Earnings Day? -02/17/09 at 12:07 AM CSTby Mahyar Hashemi

K-Swiss Inc. (KSWS) will soon report earnings for the holiday quarter.  The last time management reported, it was November 5th, 2008.  The stock was trading at around $14.  Skechers USA, Inc., a competitor, was trading at $12. Today, the stock trades at around $10.50, a 25% drop while the S&P has dropped about 15%.  Based on recen...

General Electric, and the Crumbling Myth of Warren Buffett -02/13/09 at 3:33 PM CSTby Perry Rod

In December, I did a quick Christmas valuation analysis of General Electric and concluded that $16 was too much to pay for the company, given the current market environment and the company's enterprise multiple. Since then, GE (GE) has given up tens of billions in market capitalization and just recently bounced off a low of $10.66, a price that has not b...

Peak Oil Fears Are Not Translating Into Higher Oil Prices -02/11/09 at 10:56 PM CSTby Reggie Abaca

The talking heads on television are leading an overwhelming chorus of opinion that says, "this financial crisis was caused by loose lending practices." But what caused loose lending practices? The answer will be obvious to those who specialize in risk assessment.  Overall loose lending practices are caused by a loose belief that overall growth is in...

Bernard Madoff, the Mafia, and the Friends of Michael Milken -02/05/09 at 2:25 AM CSTby Mark Mitchell

In 2005, Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com (OSTK) and future Deep Capture investigative reporter, began a public crusade against illegal naked short selling (hedge funds and brokers creating phantom stock to manipulate stock prices down). He said, over and over, that the crime was destroying public companies and had the potential to trigger a syst...

What Happened to Starbucks When a Rumor Spread? -02/02/09 at 9:34 PM CSTby Peter York

Three weeks ago, anti-Israel protestors destroyed a Starbucks (SBUX) in a major demonstration in London.  Why was Starbucks a target of this political demonstration? Well, CEO Howard Schultz is Jewish and has received awards for his 'support of Israel.'  That prompted a mass email and text campaign stating that "Starbucks and McDonalds are donat...

Benjamin Netanyahu, Peak Oil, And a World On The Brink -01/29/09 at 6:44 PM CSTby Reggie Abaca

The election of Democrat Barack Obama has managed to calm the wary nerves of those who feared the idea of an expanded worldwide war.  There is a sense of calm on that front and an entirely new focus on the devastating economic crisis of today.  Even investors in the crude oil (OIL) market are, for now, sitting back and taking a breath, perhaps c...

Corporate Theft By LGBT Executives -01/28/09 at 1:24 PM CSTby Perry Rod

Yes, corporate greed is reaching every corner of our society.  In this case, it has been corporate greed of epic proportions.  It's the kind you only get away with when nobody is paying any attention. PlanetOut Inc. (LGBT) is the owner of gay.com, a matchmaking website.  Together, the executives of this company managed to lose over a hundre...

Strange Occurrences, and a Story about Naked Short Selling -01/27/09 at 6:15 PM CSTby Mark Mitchell

Evidence suggests that Bernard Madoff, the “prominent” Wall Street operator and former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, had ties to the Russian Mafia, Moscow-based oligarchs, and the Genovese organized crime family. And, as reported by Deep Capture and Reuters, Madoff did not just orchestrate a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. He was also the pri...

Peak Oil Production in Russia Suggests Worldwide Supplies on the Brink -01/26/09 at 12:25 AM CSTby Reggie Abaca

Russian oil production decreased for the first time in 10 years according to Vedomosti, a Russian newspaper.  The decrease was only 0.7%, while exports were reduced more dramatically year over year, down 6.2%. The fall in Russian production may be a major turning point in worldwide crude oil production.  While OPEC nations such as top producer S...