Leave a Comment

Breaking: The Markopolos File
NakedShorts — ... Case Closing Recommendation SEC Division of Enforcement Nov. 21 2007 (i.e. 2 years 2 weeks later) Chasing Bernard Madoff by Gregory Zuckerman The Wall Street Journal Dec. 18 2008 ...

Some Madoff Must-Reading
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed — Tonight's WSJ contains some Bernie Madoff must-reading. The story of the decade-long quest on the part of Harry Markopolos to take Madoff down is simultaneously depressing -- he had the case increasingly cold for years, and the SEC completed f**ked it up -- and uplifting -- he was indefatigable, honest and empirical in making his case. Read the whole thing. Mr. Markopolos argued his case: A key part of Mr. Madoff's strategy relied on buying and selling options on the Standard & Poor's 100-stock index. But Mr. Markopolos said his research ...

Further reading
FT Alphaville — Elsewhere on Thursday, - Horlick’s memory hole . - A four bad bears update. - “Here is a headline I am laughing at: ‘Bond investors turn bullish on treasuries.’” - Getting metaphysical about funds of funds. - Busting Bernie Madoff - The crusade . - “More than a decade ago, when I was in my late 40s, I handed over my life savings to Madoff’s firm.” - Credit card companies get behavioural. - Watch Fred Thompson explain bailout economics. - Watch a photographer shove Madoff . _______________________

Thursday links: sticky bonuses
Abnormal Returns — ... For ten years Harry Markopolos knew Madoff’s returns were too good to be true.  (WSJ.com also ...

The Madoff scandal gets weirder and weirder
BloggingStocks — ... According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEC discovered in 2006 that Madoff had misled the agency about how he managed customers' money. Moreover, investor Henry Markopolos spent the past decade trying to convince the agency that Madoff's returns were too good to be true. Markopolos and his friends tried to replicate his returns using complex mathematical models and could not. ...

An Amazing Document On Madoff Said To Have Been Sent To SEC In 2005
FinanceProfessor.com — ... "The WSJ describes them as "ranging from in-depth mathematical calculations that purported to show the Madoff investment strategy couldn't work, to little more than rumor or innuendo." That makes Markopolos sound like a little bit of a crank, but reading through his actual allegations doesn't leave that impression at all. Obviously hindsight plays a role here, but I can't imagine anyone reading them in 2005 and not concluding that there was something deeply suspect going on. Markopolos goes to great lengths to demonstrate that the investment returns claimed by ...