Goldman Sachs Documents Naked Short Selling
In May, 2012, Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone wrote an article, Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al. Engaged in 'Naked Short Selling'
The article discusses how in the course of discovery of lawsuits between Goldman Sachs, BankAmerica versus Rolling Stone, Overstock, the Economist, Bloomberg, and the New York Times Goldman Sachs accidentally filed an "unredacted version of Overstock’s motion as an exhibit in their declaration of opposition to that motion. In doing so, they inadvertently entered into the public record a sort of greatest-hits selection of the very material they’ve been fighting for years to keep sealed."
The material released purports to show that at the highest levels within Goldman Sachs, naked short selling was known, facilitated, and encouraged, and that Goldman Sachs would reveal non-public information about the overall positions of naked short selling on specific businesses to its large hedge fund partners.
Was Goldman really disclosing “nonpublic data concerning customer short positions” to its big hedge fund clients? That would be something its smaller, “Muppet” customers would probably want to hear about.
When I contacted Goldman and asked if it was true that Masterson had shared nonpublic customer information with a big hedge fund client, their spokesperson Michael Duvally offered this explanation:
"Among other services it provides, Securities Lending at Goldman provides market color information to clients regarding various activity in the securities lending marketplace on a security specific or sector specific basis. In accordance with the group's guidelines concerning the provision of market color, Mr. Masterson provided a client with certain aggregate information regarding short balances in certain securities. The information did not contain reference to any particular clients' short positions."
Read more about this topic: Overstock.com
Famous quotes containing the words goldman, documents, short and/or selling:
“To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“In the course of writing one historical book or another, it has happened that I could hardly restrain myself from simply copying entire documents. Indeed, I sometimes sank down among the documents and said to myself, I can’t improve on these.”
—Alfred Döblin (1878–1957)
“But come what sorrow can,
It cannot countervail the exchange of joy
That one short minute gives me in her sight.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.””
—Bible: New Testament, Luke 19:45,46.