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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Freddie Mac, Accounting Violations, Suicide

Freddie Mac Acting CFO David Kellermann Found Dead by Police: " Freddie Mac Acting Chief Financial Officer David Kellermann was found dead early today in his home in the Washington suburbs, police said.

The “unintended” death is under active investigation and a cause has yet to be determined, Fairfax County Officer Shelley Broderick said. Kellermann’s body was found around 4:48 a.m. local time at a home in Reston, Virginia, police said. There were no signs of “foul play,” Broderick said."

FN:
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is digging deeper and has linked the probable suicide to accounting fraud. Rumors are flying about RECENT accounting violations.

Freddie's Acting CFO Found Dead: "Investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission and Justice Department have been questioning officials of Freddie Mac about possible accounting violations and other matters in recent months, the company disclosed in March.

Freddie disclosed in the recent SEC filing that in September it received a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York seeking documents related to accounting, disclosure and corporate governance matters. That subpoena was later withdrawn, Freddie has disclosed, and the investigation was taken over by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Freddie said the SEC also is investigating and has told the company to preserve documents. Freddie has said it is "cooperating fully in these matters."
... "


FN: Where have we seen this before? Or right, ENRON. A trip down memory lane...

Former Enron exec dies in apparent suicide: "Former Enron Corp. vice chairman J. Clifford Baxter was found dead in his car in a Houston suburb early Friday, the victim of an apparent suicide, police said.

Baxter made millions on the sale of Enron stock, but reportedly was unhappy with Enron's business practices and resigned as vice chairman in May. He had remained as an Enron consultant.

Enron, once a giant energy corporation, has collapsed in the biggest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history amid accusations of mishandling of funds and shredding of crucial documents. Enron and its accounting firm, Andersen LLP, are under congressional investigation."

81 comments:

Anonymous said...

... possible accounting violations ... What would those be - posting the correct numbers for once, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

This news would have been significant as foreshadowing in 2007, but today, yawn.....

What about some TA on the markets?

Anonymous said...

Looks like the "crap" rally is resuming!!

Oops!

Bobby and Jean the amateur world travelers said...

love the anonymous posts...

he who laugh lasts laughs the most...

until the recent highs are broken, trend has changed... go ahead and buy, if you get trapped don't complain.

Anonymous said...

@Anon 9:52

But what if the economy's current situation is a "Yawn" compared to what we are about to go through.

That would be bad.

Anonymous said...

As a reader from the UK, I have a story to tell:

There was a row between the BBC and the government a few years ago after the BBC accused the government of "sexing up" the WMD dossier prior to the second Iraq war. (the prime source for the dossier being a PHD thesis that was published on the web a couple of years earlier)

The BBC journo's primary source was a UN weapons inspector called David Kelly who was exposed following the Hutton enquiry (i.e. government cover-up.. the outcome being that as there wasn't a piece of paper signed by Tony Blair saying "sex this dossier up" the government didn't do it... The lets ignore "it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck" logic)


Anyway early on in the broo-haa-haa Dr David Kelly was discovered dead in the woods from an apparent suicide.. He cut his wrists not in the "traditional" way, but by sawing through the tendons in his left wrist to get to a deeper hidden artery...

At the end of the day, I'm not a 9/11 truther etc. (I would cite reading this blog for example) but it struck me that this guy could have shot the UK/USA's case for war to pieces very early on...

My awful suspicion is this CFO chappie may have found out some things that more powerful people didn't want exposed to the light of day..

And before you suggest I get myself a tinfoil hat, remeber we have both had troops in Iraq for years fighting a bullshit war, and your justice department was issuing explicit guidance detailing exactly how to torture people..

Sorry for the rant.. and good day!

Hulu said...

Ben,

Can you do an update on gold or precious metals. No position right now, but would like to get long. But I would not want to be long while you're still short. :-)

Anonymous said...

So, if Monday's action signaled a trend reversal, shouldn't the markets be heading lower?

Anonymous said...

NEXT!!

Hiro said...

you've been bearish on the financials..it looks like it's consolidating with plenty of potentials to move further up..what are your thoughts?

Where'reUninja? said...

Where are you NINJA? Back to the Japan's mountain? To find more bears to come out? Hello......HA?

Anonymous said...

The bull pirates took it to the ninja, and did him in.

Anonymous said...

Hokkaido bears are known to be especially aggressive towards humans.

Anonymous said...

perhaps he has succumbed to the swine flu

Anonymous said...

And away we go!

Nasdaq back to 1,700.

Bull Pirates win again!

Anonymous said...

Ninja, where have you been? like me, getting your short ass pounded by the rally?

Anonymous said...

Maybe he has better things to do than respond to troll-bulltards that don't even have a dime to their name to "invest" with...you know, like a real job, involving work...

Anonymous said...

This "crap" rally has got legs.

Tord Steiro said...

Since I'm having a horribly unproductive day at work today, I thought I could just as well take a peek at some scary charts again.

Interestingly, I noticed that while excess reserves have recently shor up again, "testing the highs" from January, the multiplier is reaching out for a new low. These two observations are obviously consistent, but why would they forst look like they are startng to get back to normal, and then reverse?

Further, the non-borrowed reserves appears to be spiking again, and total borrowings are plummeting. I suspect this indicates some clearing of toxic balance sheets, but does this mean that the FED is now accumulating the same toxic assets, aiming in for a $300bln+ loss due to toxic assets, could it e a result of the FED printing money ($300bln, for instance), or what do you think?

Firstly, we say non-borrowed reerves and total borrowing decline sharply - in tandem. Now, we see an increase in non-borrowed reserves, while total borrowing continue to decline. I'm gettnig confused...

Anonymous said...

Where are you? Permabear is hiding?
Did you get the swine flu? TA is working very well..loll. If it would work well your crap you would be on the forbes 500 list. It is time for you to shut down this blog.

Anonymous said...

Dow Jones 8,300

LOL

Anonymous said...

Can you re-enumerate the "Reasons Why April 20th Signaled a Trend Change"........LMAO

Anonymous said...

Are u okay? Looking forward to read your insights again. Take good care.

Anonymous said...

This is an easy elliot wave count....we are in a countertrend rally. No mystery.
Might last for months before another wave down.

Anonymous said...

The Baltic Dry Index climbed 1.1% amid gains by all of its subindices; the Panamax Index led the way by advancing 2.2%.

DryShips (DRYS 8.33, +0.91) is garnering considerable interest after the company announced first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.36 per share, which is $0.17 better than the consensus estimate of $0.19 per share.

Anonymous said...

Did you commit suicide after losing all your money? Market is up again today loll. Well, I wish you good luck in your next carreer.

Anonymous said...

Rocket ship from S&P 666 to S&P 888.

That's gonna a burn mark!

Anonymous said...

Methinks the ninja committed sepakku.

Anonymous said...

Ninja, you okay?

We miss your posts and insight.

How far do you think this bear market rally will go?

Anonymous said...

Miss your posts, man.

Nomad said...

It is definitely sad that anyone might kill themselves over a loss of money

Brandon de Wilde said...

Come back, Ninja!
Ninja!
Come back!!

Anonymous said...

Come back alive, ninja! Everyone can lose all their money in a few weeks. It's ok to start over, as long as you still have your family and friends and loyal readers!

Claypot said...

Hey, don't worry! Everything will be fine! Remember you made tons tons of money last year? I'm still enjoying my glorious moment.

Mike Masland said...

Ben,

Look forward to your return. Get back here...

-Mike

Anonymous said...

Wave two will see investor sentiment reaching great heights again before wave III down crunches everybody who is "investing".

FXXKTHEBEARS said...

The DEATH of the BEARS.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/silence-bears/story.aspx?guid={80519BCC-F5C7-4C02-85B5-C6F7C595327B}

Oops! Should be silence! But how long? Years? lol.......

Anonymous said...

Did da Ninja declare personal bankruptcy? His trend change failed.

Anonymous said...

jester's dead folks.

a blog is blog only if it's blogged.

Ninja has not blogged in a Loooong time...so this is no longer a blog...

Later, and good luck trying to figure out the logic behind the recent market run up.

Anonymous said...

Hey folks, do you know what the word "NINJA" means?

Anonymous said...

Miss you. Come back!

Anonymous said...

no..tell us. what does NINJA mean?

Anonymous said...

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BF%8D%E8%80%85

Ninja from wiki Japan

Anonymous said...

The Ninja got his head ripped off in this "crap" rally that won't stop. Ouch.

Anonymous said...

Guess somebody was hugely short with no stop loss. Ouch

brandy night rocks said...

Happy two week anniversary on the front page, Freddie Violations Suicide post!


PS - I bet if I added up all the cheddar you "Guess someone musta shorted without stops HURRRRRR" pussies lost when you destroyed 70% of your accounts between October '07 and February '09, I bet I still wouldn't come up to one standard deviation on an average Ninja trading day. So shut the fuck up.

Anonymous said...

That Freddie Mac suicide was oh so very significant. It shook up Wall Street -- in fact, 2 weeks later Wall Street is still shaking in its boots!

Anonymous said...

"Guess somebody was hugely short with no stop loss. Ouch"

That is really pathetic!

The Financial Ninja said...

I will be back with a posting shortly. :-)

Anonymous said...

Back like the muthfukin resurrection! Just in time. Today was wonderful.

Anonymous said...

Ninja is back in da house!

Anonymous said...

Ninja,
Welcome back.

SS

Anonymous said...

That's not the real ninja. The real ninja has a picture and a profile. I hope the real ninja returns. I miss the great charts and analysis.

ITISABULLMARKETFXXKU said...

Hey Ninja, why not close down the blog? It's a BULL MARKET! Read my lips!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps the Ninja is seeking his face after losing it in this "rip your face off" rally?

Anonymous said...

Oh, crap, yeah, better listen to these bright bulls.

After all, they've been right 7.6% of the time in the last 18. I'm sure they've just set the world on fire trading the $500 they had left in their IRA's at the beginning of April.

Anonymous said...

Let's see....I was short last year and long now.....anything wrong with that ,or do you have to be a perpetually negative person and catch the tops every time?
Just because the system is BS doesn't mean the market won't take your money if you play the stubborn idealist.

layeritup said...

Ninja's prolonged absence here is both uncharacterisic and worrying.

Hope all is well with him.

The Trooper said...

Let's give Ben the benefit of the doubt, no?

Personally, I don't think its appropriate to speculate that something is "wrong" with him. Let's hope not, anyway. But I also find it hard to believe that anyone who maintained a blog with this kind of following, for this long, would just suddenly stop and not give a reason. He's obviously passionate about this and has something to say. Let's not forget the guy DOES work a full time job, too. Maybe he's busy. Maybe he's on vacation. Maybe he ran off and got married, or maybe he had a kid born. Who knows? My point is, we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Leave the negativity out of it.


Ben commented back on April 20th:

"I've been working on a massive project that monopolized my time. I had to sacrifice the blog. My apologies for that.

I'm almost there... and I will reveal what I've been working on.

Obviously it's trading related and I will be working it into this blog. (It will significantly improve the blog.)

I cannot yet reveal more."


Lets wait and see.

Ben Bittrolff said...

Was very busy the last weeks. Will be posting soon again. Thanks for your concern.

Anonymous said...

Wow that is a great call on the oil breakdown....still short?

[IMG]http://content.screencast.com/users/trona/folders/Jing/media/b60f6e5e-3f13-4e79-8de7-87cec597fba9/2009-05-10_1049.png[/IMG]

Swe.Ge said...

Hey Ben hope you are ok

Josh said...

Ben You are the King of the Bear Wedges. Time is near. The equivalent rally of the 1929 Bear was 48 trading days. We are about 42 trading days now It is going to be this week. I am starting to look at SRS as well as shorting things like JACK and MET.

Anonymous said...

Ninja,

Has the trend changed?

Anonymous said...

This blog has fallen off a cliff

Anonymous said...

Come back Ben, you are missed!

Anonymous said...

Hey suicide's back in the business press today:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/16/james-lull-ponzi-scammer-_n_204305.html

This may be in bad taste, but IMO suicide is still the most sincere form of self-criticism.

Also suicide to save face (like the whole 'ninja' thing) is "very Japanese".

Come to think of it, many commentators have a fear of the US banking system 'turning japanese', a la the 1990s.

And not in the fun way, as in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxniCvshwK4

Anonymous said...

this comment thread now belongs to Anonymous

to get my TA fix I've been enjoying Cobra's Market View, which Ben once linked to.

Anonymous said...

aaaaand the link:
http://cobrasmarketview.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Ninja likes the BIG BEAR, they both certified DEAD

Jeff Burke said...

C'mon back Ben, hope all is well with you ?!?

Unknown said...

enougth!!!
we are worried about your helth. Say something!!!

Anonymous said...

He has no respect for his fans and followers if he's okay and leaving us hanging here.

Takes about 5 minutes to update us.

If he's not okay, hopefully he'll recover quickly.

Anonymous said...

http://thomaspainereturns.net/

Part of the ruling elites' plan is to use share markets as critical indicators of the health of the various economies. The share markets are being manipulated tremendously by the ruling elite. They go up and down as they are supposed to do, according to the ruling elites' plans. The manipulation, as I have said many times, is very obvious when one follows the volume traded on a given day. The ruling elite use many devices to move these market levels, and now, after a month of growth by the DOW, American president Obama avers that the recession is showing signs of ending. However, the DOW only went up because the ruling elite pushed it upward with huge capital outlays in shares to prop up the market to make it appear to be going up. Has the lesson from ENRON been forgotten so quickly? Why do the financial analysts almost completely ignore the volume of shares traded?

The answer is clear. The ruling elite do not want people to focus on the manipulation of the markets. They do not want people to know the truth. They want to maintain the illusion that the share markets represent something that they do not. The ruling elites' plan involves tricking the majority of the people into foolishly believing that the markets are honest leading indicators of the economy. There was a time when the share market movements could be relied on to assist in predicting future economic developments, but those days are long gone. The DOW is now so corrupted that it is no longer a status symbol to represent the privileged 30 companies on it. Instead, many of the companies on the index are in precarious states. This means that many of the blue chips no longer signify safe harbours for investors. The DOW now measures the level of manipulation that the gullible will fall for.

Anonymous said...

That's why traders will flourish....and mutual fund holders will perish

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