The MOASS That Never Was

The world of baloney was all agog in recent days because of the approach of Oct. 15 -- today. This was the day that all the many "grandfathered fails to deliver" were supposed to be closed out under a nonsensical bit of rulemaking called Reg. SHO.

That sounds like a lot of irrelevant gobbledygook, and it is. To sum up several tons of baloney into a few words: the stock market conspiracy types (in stuff like this and this) were expecting that their massive "scandal" would result in a huge upward move in the markets today. This was a central event, a kind of Bastile Day, to the inept CEOs and penny stock types who promote this discredited cause.

Well, guess what, folks? There was a big move in the market today: downward, in all stocks including the stock market conspiracy cult stocks. Doggies like Overstock.com actually fell. Overstock was down 3%. Novastar Financial, a favorite of Internet huckster Phil Saunders a/k/a "Bob O'Brien," was down 1%.

Saunders is a former used medical equipment salesman who uses his shilling expertise to convince investors that a massive market conspiracy -- and not poor corporate results -- causes bad stocks to perform badly. He uses a pseudonym -- his real name was revealed by the New York Post some months ago -- in order to avoid taking responsibility for his bad advice.

As usual, the baloney peddlers have been proven wrong with their predictions of a MOASS ("mother of all short squeezes"). But don't worry. The excuse machine is churning away, and a new fairy tale will soon replace the old one.

UPDATE: D-Day having been a dud, the latest word from delicatessen-land is that the date of the big MOASS has been rescheduled for 35 days from now. Stay tuned.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



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Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.