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SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

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Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#51

I'm rarely a cheerleader for the SEC, but their work this week alone has been marvellous. Delighted to see these guys brought to book.

They jumped the gun on SBF. Should have let him testify in congress. The timing makes it look like they didn’t want him to talk. May not be the case but it’s what it looks like.

They can still make him do it now. Prison has zoom calls

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#52
post #11

I'm a noob when it comes to stock trading rules, but can someone explain how this is different than what Jim Cramer does on his show? Cramer has been exposed for knowingly giving people bad stock trading advice. Is it just that Cramer didn't do a blatantly obvious pump-and-dump like these influencers did?

Jim is most likely not trading the securities directly. The money he makes is from his tv contracts and other non-securities trading business probably. Maybe being paid by the companies to shill for them.

> Maybe being paid by the companies to shill for them.

That would be quite illegal if not disclosed.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#53
post #46

I'm a noob when it comes to stock trading rules, but can someone explain how this is different than what Jim Cramer does on his show? Cramer has been exposed for knowingly giving people bad stock trading advice. Is it just that Cramer didn't do a blatantly obvious pump-and-dump like these influencers did?

No laws against incorrectly predicting the movement of securities. There are laws to prevent pump and dump of securities for profit. If Cramer was giving price predictions that benefited him without disclosing his positions, he would be violating the law. It is necessarily illegal to provide guidance of stock movement if you hold the stock. You need to say what positions your holding. Short sellers do this all the ti…

I don't think you even need to disclose your positions, you just can't have positions that are contradictory to the information that you disclose.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#54

This is the list of people they've charged: - Perry Matlock @PJ_Matlock - Edward Constantin @MrZackMorris - Thomas Cooperman @ohheytommy - Gary Deel @notoriousalerts - Mitchell Hennessey @Hugh_Henne - Stefan Hrvatin @LadeBackk - John Rybarcyzk @Ultra_Calls - Daniel Knight (@DipDeity)

It's nice to see I don't know, much less follow, any of these people. Similar feeling to when SBF went bust. Even though I'm heavily involved in the bitcoin space, I barely knew anything about him other than vague praise of his effective altruism ideals and more pro-crypto/anti-bitcoin stance and that he ran a seedy, off shore exchange. Only afterwards did a lot of the people I actually do follow and respect resurfac…

I didn't recognize a single one either.

Quick random search returns "articles" like this: https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/30/the-success-story-of-atla...

Somehow it vaguely reminds me of old timey snake oil sales copy. Things never really change.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#55
Look these guys are clearly scumbags but anyone who reads anonymous twitter posts and invests on that basis without assuming everything is a pump and dump is going to lose all their money one way or another. I would guess that at least 95 percent of trades based on this crew knew full well this was a momentum pump and dump club and just hoped to ride the wave and get out before the suckers. Not tremendous pity for their losses.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is only part of the issue ("Guarantees"). The far larger and more important issue is disclosure laws. As the other guy posted, you cant recommend one thing and do another. "we recommend you BUY XYZ" while you are holding a lot of shares in this and sell into the buy market you created. You also cant offer recommendations without disclosing how you are compensated. I'm Canadian and more familiar with its rules /…

How does this relate to advertising? They're recommending people give their cash to buy a thing (I'm specifically thinking of the "Cash for gold" ads which are constantly playing on the conservative talk radio that our machinists listen to in the shop), while they're doing the opposite: giving away their gold to in exchange for your cash. Either they're acting against their own self-interest, sacrificing their incorr…

This is the funny thing about the disclosure laws. The "influencers" may not have broken any trading rules, but their failure to disclose is an issue all to itself.

> Either they're acting against their own self-interest, sacrificing their incorruptible, safe gold for the risky, inflationary fiat currency, or they're lying about what they believe.

There is a lot to unpack here. But it comes down to this. You can advertise your services and not violate SEC laws, or you can do things which violate SEC rules.

As for buying gold for cash :

1) This isnt covered by the SEC, (perhaps the CFTC?)

2) your post about "fiat currency" vs gold is unclear. You are aware that they don't just buy bold bricks, but unwanted jewelry, etc as well?

If we replace "gold" with "used cars" does it work the same way? You are selling your unwated broken car which may be of some value to someone else.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#58
post #9
post #7

Finally, people are starting to realize that the "stock market" is a huge scam

I don't think its fair to call the stock market a scam. I do think it's fair to say that a large part of how the stock market is used is in scams. Ideally, the stock market should be an open, visible and free agency for the population to invest in and gain returns from supporting publicly traded businesses. I just think it's far too unregulated (or perhaps, improperly regulated is the right term) to operate in that w…

> Ideally, the stock market should be an open, visible and free agency for the population to invest in and gain returns from supporting publicly traded businesses.

Now that trading is moving to "dark pools", things seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

Re: SEC charges eight social media influencers in $100M stock manipulation scheme

#60
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nice to see I don't know, much less follow, any of these people. Similar feeling to when SBF went bust. Even though I'm heavily involved in the bitcoin space, I barely knew anything about him other than vague praise of his effective altruism ideals and more pro-crypto/anti-bitcoin stance and that he ran a seedy, off shore exchange. Only afterwards did a lot of the people I actually do follow and respect resurfac…

I didn't recognize a single one either. Quick random search returns "articles" like this: https://dailycaller.com/2021/07/30/the-success-story-of-atla... Somehow it vaguely reminds me of old timey snake oil sales copy. Things never really change.

Their a/k/a names listed in the complaint were so cringe I can’t even imagine the type of person who would think these guys gave solid investment advice.
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