« BusinessWeek, Insider Trading, and the Craigslist Connection | Main | Google Calendar has Landed »
Latest Stories
- Excel Wankers and Recession Averages
- Sorry, New York is Closed. Check Back Later.
- Catching Falling 2009 Earnings Estimate Knife
- Survivorship Bias in Global Markets
- Talking Positions on a Lazy-ish Retirement Portfolio
April 12, 2006
On CNBC Tonight at 7pm EST
Tonight at 7pm EST (4pm PST) I'm on the CNBC show "On the Money". Thesubject is this week's revelations about a multinational
insider-trading ring.
[Update] Okay, now done. That was good fun, but what was remarkable, at least to me, was that I couldn't convince any of the guests (okay, host Dylan was onside) that this trading ring represented an important new development in stock scams. Using Craigslist to recruit moles for insider trading amounts to tapping into a liquid and highly-specialized new market. People are kidding themselves if they imagine the "innovations" stop here.
Sphere It
| 
Digg it
| 
Bookmark it
| 
Stumble it
| 
Facebook it
Just to play devil's advocate for a bit Paul, why is using craigslist any different from using classifieds in the newspaper? Just because it's a different medium doesn't make it radically different apart from increasing the reach, does it?
Well, you might say the same thing about Ebay's markets. While you could always buy and sell through classifieds, it took the convenience of Ebay to make it truly gigantic.
Similarly, velocity and liquidity are everything in the capital markets, just as they are in capital markets scams. The use of new services, like Craigslist, that provide that velocity and liquidity make scamming faster, easier, and cheaper.
Paul, I agree with you. I couldn't understand how the other guest didn't pick up on how the internet ( craigs list etc ) is changing things. There will be more innovative scams like these in the near future.