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Trader Pleads Guilty To Illegal Purchase of Nearly $1B In Apple Stock
An anonymous reader writes "A trader who last year made an unauthorized purchase of nearly US$1 billion worth of Apple stock has pled guilty to wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy. On October 25, 2012 — the same day Apple posted its Q3 2012 earnings — David Miller of Rochdale Securities made a number of unauthorized purchases of Apple shares which ultimately led to the demise of the financial services firm he worked for. The aim of Miller's action was to make a lot of money very quickly by purchasing large quantities of Apple shares and selling them in a post-earnings surge."
oh wait
never mind
at least the Mac blogs i still read keep on pumping the stock
Bankruptcy wont save him from court ordered restitution nor from unsecured liability. The scope of bankruptcy is actually pretty narrow. The public always seems to think "Ah fuck it I'll just file bankruptcy and 7 years later have a clean slate!" when the reality is very different. Typically people still have to pay back what they owe. Occasionally what they owe will be negotiated down so that they aren't living in a card board box but they can go decades before they get back on their feet and all the while some judge will be telling them how much they can spend on cereal and what type of car they are allowed to drive. It's not pretty.
You have a very strange definition of "valuable to the economy".
Your a bit off base here. You are dead on the money about insider trading - but this is not about insider trading - this is about 3rd party trading - he was playing around with other's people money, hoping his gamble would pay off..
It is very common to give control of a account to a 3rd party either a broker or a outside advisor. They theory is that they are professionals and can trade better then you can. When this happens, certain rules are put in place by the owner of the account. Do a stop loss here, only so much in speculative trading, etc. And it looks like he broke all kinds of rules here. Some accounts he was not even authorized to trade in.
I am going to guess this is going to play out like Nick Leeson - another famous unauthorized trader.
Typically people still have to pay back what they owe. Occasionally what they owe will be negotiated down so that they aren't living in a card board box but they can go decades before they get back on their feet and all the while some judge will be telling them how much they can spend on cereal and what type of car they are allowed to drive. It's not pretty.
No, typically people don't pay back anything (or at least close to nothing). I know two people who have declared bankruptcy, and both of them discharged every penny of debt and kept every single possession (except one of them lost one of their cars). One kept a big screen TV and a living room set that they collectively owed over $3k for because it wasn't worth Best Buy's time to repossess items of such little value. I had read quite a bit about bankruptcy because he was asking advice before talking to a lawyer, and I was still surprised at just how easy the whole process was for him in the end.
One was even able to run up an extra few thousand on his credit cards to stock up on non-perishable food and other household items (and do needed maintenance on the car he planned on keeping), and made sure not to contact a lawyer until a few months after doing it so he could claim to not know the bankruptcy court usually does not look further back than 6 months to detect such fraud (he never paid back a penny of it). I learned a lot about bankruptcy law while helping him prepare, and his lawyer did little more than back up what he and I had already learned online. The lawyer told him that the vast majority of bankruptcies are just as easy as his was (although that is just an anecdotal claim by his lawyer).
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
The lawyer told him that the vast majority of bankruptcies are just as easy as his was (although that is just an anecdotal claim by his lawyer).
No offense but you're entire post was anecdotal. I've dealt with dozens of people looking to do the same thing and its never worked out for them. Perhaps your state is more prone to this type of abuse, mine however is not. I can speak anecdotally also. I once looked into it myself during the dot com bubble crash. After speaking with several lawyers, I was informed by each and every one of them that I was fucked. I'm guessing that your friends situation was specific to your state.