Para prevenir un colapso del mercado bursátil, la Bolsa de Nueva York (NYSE) y el Nasdaq no se abrieron para negociar el martes 11 de mayo de 2001. Cuando el vuelo 11 de American Airlines se estrelló contra la Torre Norte Del World Trade Center a las 8:46 am, y el vuelo 175 de American Airlines golpeó la Torre Sur a las 9:03 am, era obvio que American estaba bajo ataque. La suposición de que un ataque terrorista coordinado por los radicales islámicos había apuntado algunas de las estructuras e instituciones más icónicas del país fue confirmada algún tiempo más tarde esa mañana cuando un avión golpeó el Pentágono y un cuarto Avión secuestrado con destino a Washington, DC fue llevado por pasajeros en Shanksville, PA. Reacción al mercado Anticipando el caos en el mercado, la venta de pánico y una desastrosa pérdida de valor a raíz de los ataques, la Bolsa de Nueva York y el Nasdaq permanecieron cerradas hasta el 17 de septiembre, la parada más larga desde 1933. Además, En el World Trade Center y fueron incapaces de funcionar a raíz de la trágica pérdida de vidas y el colapso de ambas torres. En el primer día de negociación de la Bolsa de Nueva York después del 11 de septiembre, el mercado cayó 684 puntos, un descenso de 7.1, estableciendo un récord para la mayor pérdida en la historia de cambios de un día de negociación. Al cierre de las operaciones del viernes, terminando una semana que registró las mayores pérdidas en la historia de la Bolsa de Nueva York, el Dow Jones bajó casi 1.370 puntos, lo que representa una pérdida de más de 14. El índice Standard and Poors (SampP) perdió 11.6. Un estimado de 1,4 billones de dólares en valor se perdió en los cinco días de negociación. Las ventas masivas de acciones golpearon a la aerolínea y los sectores de seguros como se anticipó cuando se reanudó el comercio. Las más afectadas fueron American Airlines y United Airlines, compañías cuyos aviones fueron secuestrados por los ataques terroristas. Las Acciones Financieras de American Airlines (NYSE: AMR) cayeron de un cierre de 29,70 por acción del 11 de septiembre a 18,00 por acción cerca del 17 de septiembre, un descenso de 39. Las acciones de United Airlines (NYSE: UAL) cayeron de 30,82 por acción cerca de 17,50 por acción al cierre el 17 de septiembre, una caída de 42. Las declinaciones pronunciadas similares golpearon los sectores del recorrido, del turismo, de la hospitalidad, del entretenimiento y de los servicios financieros, como una onda del miedo y de la incertidumbre temporales barrió a través de la nación. Entre los gigantes de servicios financieros con las mayores caídas en los precios de las acciones se Merrill Lynch, que perdió 11,5, y Morgan Stanley, que perdió 13. Seguros de las empresas eventualmente pagado unos 40,2 millones de dólares en 9/11 reclamaciones relacionadas. Entre los mayores perdedores fue Warren Buffets Berkshire Hathaway. La mayoría de las compañías de seguros posteriormente cayeron cobertura terrorista. Invertir en Protección Algunos sectores, sin embargo, prosperaron como resultado de los ataques. Ciertas compañías de tecnología, así como contratistas de defensa y armamento vieron que los precios de sus acciones aumentaron sustancialmente, anticipando un impulso en los negocios del gobierno mientras el país se preparaba para la larga guerra contra el terrorismo. Los precios de las acciones también aumentaron para las empresas de comunicaciones y farmacéuticas. En los intercambios de opciones de las naciones, incluyendo el Chicago Board Options Exchange (los mundos más grandes), el volumen de put y call aumentó de manera correspondiente. Opciones de venta. Que permiten a un inversor beneficiarse si una acción específica disminuye en el precio, fueron comprados en gran número en las compañías aéreas, la banca y las acciones de seguros. Opciones de llamada. Que permiten a un inversor beneficiarse de las acciones que suben de precio, fueron comprados en la defensa y las empresas relacionadas con el ejército. A corto plazo. Los inversores que habían comprado estas opciones hicieron dinero. La línea de fondo La economía de EE. UU. es legendaria por su fuerza y resistencia, y el carácter nacional es persistentemente optimista. No había transcurrido más de un mes antes de que el Dow Jones, el Nasdaq y el SampP hubieran recuperado sus precios pre-9/11. Los problemas económicos actuales de las Américas pueden no estar directamente relacionados con los ataques del 11 de septiembre, aunque un argumento convincente podría ser que un gran porcentaje de nuestra deuda nacional es atribuible a la extremadamente costosa guerra contra el terror en Irak, Afganistán y otros lugares. La deuda nacional de EE. UU. en billones de dólares. (Para obtener más información sobre cómo invertir en estos tiempos, compruebe la compra cuando hay sangre en las calles). Hubo un comercio muy alto en las opciones de cuotas en American Airline y United Airlines, inmediatamente antes del 11 de septiembre. Éstos eran apuestas eficaces que sus precios de parte caerían, que por supuesto es lo que sucedió una vez que los ataques ocurrieron. Esto muestra que los comerciantes deben haber tenido conocimiento previo de 9/11. Esta es una historia compleja, pero las afirmaciones no siempre coinciden con la realidad. Aunque hubo grandes volúmenes de comercio en estos días, por ejemplo, weren8217t como excepcionalmente alta como algunos sitios como para reclamar. Aquí hay un análisis. Había muy buenas razones para vender acciones de American Airlines, también, ya que acababan de anunciar una serie de malas noticias. Leer más aquí. Las acciones de United Airlines también bajaban de precio. Si los inversionistas anticipaban que estaban a punto de lanzar malos resultados, entonces sus opciones de venta también valdrían la pena comprar (aunque tenga en cuenta que los volúmenes de UAL fueron los más altos en el año de todos modos). Aquí están nuestros pensamientos. Algunos apuntan a historias como la 8220unclaimed millones8221 de UAL pone como tener una explicación siniestra, pero no estamos de acuerdo. Aquí es por qué. Hubo mucha conversación sobre potenciales tratos de información privilegiada en otras acciones, también. Hemos investigado estos en cualquier profundidad, pero vale la pena señalar que algunas personas creen que las afirmaciones fueron exageradas. ¿Qué pasa con la mayoría de las opciones que se están poniendo a través de un banco vinculado por la CIA Nos weren8217t convencido. El informe de la Comisión del 11-S menciona esta cuestión en sus notas al capítulo 5: "Un inversor institucional único con sede en los Estados Unidos sin vínculos concebibles con Al Qaeda compró el 95 por ciento de la UAL se pone el 6 de septiembre como parte de una estrategia comercial que también incluye la compra 115.000 acciones de American el 10 de septiembre. Del mismo modo, gran parte de la negociación aparentemente sospechoso en América el 10 de septiembre se remontó a un boletín de comercio de opciones específicas de Estados Unidos, enviado por fax a sus suscriptores el domingo 9 de septiembre, que recomendó estos oficios. Quizás el desafío más fuerte a esta conclusión viene del profesor Allen M Poteshman de la Universidad de Illinois en Urbana-Champaign. Decidió investigar esto más a fondo, analizando estadísticamente los datos del mercado para tratar de evaluar la importancia del comercio. El profesor Poteshman señala varias razones para cuestionar el argumento del conocimiento previo: A pesar de las opiniones expresadas por los medios de comunicación populares, los principales académicos y los profesionales del mercado de opciones, hay razones para cuestionar la determinación de la evidencia de que los terroristas negociaban en el mercado de opciones antes de septiembre 11 ataques. Un evento que pone en duda la evidencia es el accidente de un avión de American Airlines en la ciudad de Nueva York el 12 de noviembre. Según el sitio web de OCC, tres días hábiles antes, el 7 de noviembre, el put-call ratio de opciones sobre acciones AMR Fue 7,74. Sobre la base de las declaraciones sobre los vínculos entre la actividad del mercado de opciones y el terrorismo poco después del 11 de septiembre, habría sido tentador inferir de esta relación de put-call que el terrorismo probablemente fue la causa del accidente del 12 de noviembre. Posteriormente, sin embargo, el terrorismo fue casi descartado. Si bien puede ser el caso de que una relación anormalmente grande de put-call de AMR se observó por casualidad el 7 de noviembre, este hecho plantea ciertamente la cuestión de si las relaciones put-call de hasta 7.74 son, de hecho, inusuales. Más allá del accidente de avión del 12 de noviembre, un artículo publicado en Barron8217s el 8 de octubre (Arvedlund 2001) ofrece varias razones adicionales para ser escéptico sobre las afirmaciones de que es probable que los terroristas o sus asociados intercambiaran opciones AMR y UAL antes de los ataques del 11 de septiembre. Para empezar, el artículo señala que el comercio más pesado en las opciones de AMR no ocurrió en el más barato, más corto de fecha pone, que habría proporcionado los mayores beneficios a alguien que sabía de los próximos ataques. Además, un analista había emitido una recomendación 8220sell8221 sobre AMR durante la semana anterior, lo que puede haber llevado a los inversores a comprar AMR pone. Del mismo modo, el precio de las acciones de UAL había disminuido recientemente lo suficiente para interesar a los comerciantes técnicos que pueden haber aumentado su compra de put, y las opciones de UAL son fuertemente negociados por las instituciones que cubren sus posiciones de acciones. Finalmente, los comerciantes que hicieron mercados en las opciones no aumentaron el precio de venta al momento en que las órdenes llegaron como lo harían si creyeran que las órdenes estaban basadas en información no pública adversa: los creadores de mercado no parecían encontrar la negociación fuera De lo ordinario en el momento en que ocurrió. Www. business. uiuc. edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006.pdf Sin embargo, a continuación, elabora un modelo estadístico, que sugiere es coherente con la presciencia después de todo: VI. Los comerciantes de opciones, los gerentes corporativos, los analistas de seguridad, los funcionarios de intercambio, los reguladores, los fiscales, los encargados de formular políticas y el público en general tienen interés en saber si se han producido transacciones inusuales de opciones en torno a ciertos eventos. Un ejemplo de este tipo de acontecimientos son los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre y hubo muchas especulaciones acerca de si la actividad del mercado de opciones indicaba que los terroristas o sus asociados habían negociado en los días previos al 11 de septiembre Ataques inminentes. Esta especulación, sin embargo, tuvo lugar en ausencia de una comprensión de las características pertinentes de la negociación de mercado de opciones. Este documento comienza por desarrollar información sistemática sobre la distribución de la actividad del mercado de opciones. Construye distribuciones de referencia para las estadísticas de volúmenes de mercado de opciones que miden de diferentes maneras el grado en que el volumen de los fabricantes de productos no financieros establece posiciones de mercado de opciones que serán rentables si el precio subyacente sube o baja de valor. Las distribuciones de estas estadísticas se calculan de forma incondicional y cuando se condiciona el nivel general de la actividad de la opción sobre la acción subyacente, el volumen de rendimiento y de negociación de la acción subyacente y el rendimiento del mercado global. Estas distribuciones se utilizan a continuación para juzgar si el mercado de opciones que cotiza en AMR, UAL, Standard and Poor8217s y el índice SampP 500 en los días anteriores al 11 de septiembre era, de hecho, inusual. Los ratios de volumen de mercado de opciones consideradas no proporcionan evidencia de operaciones de mercado de opciones inusuales en los días previos al 11 de septiembre. Sin embargo, las relaciones de volumen se construyen a partir del volumen de venta largo y corto Ha sido la forma más sencilla para que alguien haya negociado en el mercado de opciones sobre el conocimiento previo de los ataques. También se examinó una medida del volumen anormal de la postura larga y se observó que estaba a niveles anormalmente altos en los días previos a los ataques. En consecuencia, el documento concluye que hay evidencia de actividad de mercado de opción inusual en los días previos al 11 de septiembre que es consistente con los inversionistas que negocian con conocimiento previo de los ataques. Www. business. uiuc. edu/poteshma/research/poteshman2006.pdf Un problema que nos preocupa es la falta de análisis de la serie de malas noticias entregadas por American Airlines el 7 de septiembre, el día de negociación antes del 10 de septiembre, cuando el Ocurrió la transacción más significativa. El profesor Poteshman nos dijo a través de correo electrónico: Mi estudio incluye regresiones de cuantías que cuentan las condiciones del mercado en determinadas poblaciones. Por lo tanto, hay al menos una corrección de primer orden para las noticias negativas que estaban saliendo el 7 de septiembre en AMR. Pero ¿puedes realmente tratar las noticias tan simplemente el profesor Paul Zarembka apoya las afirmaciones, diciendo: Poteshman encuentra. Estas compras de opciones en acciones de American Airlines. Tenía solamente 1 por ciento de probabilidad de ocurrir simplemente aleatoriamente. Pero no hemos dicho que eran al azar, sino que pudieron haber sido una respuesta racional a las malas noticias significativas presentadas el día anterior. Poteshman es esencialmente decir (con respecto a AMR) es que la gente compró demasiados puestos para que se explica por la noticia 9/7, por lo tanto, otra explicación es necesaria, pero ¿cómo se puede decir que sin analizar las noticias en sí Después de todo, si Que las noticias habrían estado probablemente en quiebra en seis meses8221 entonces las proporciones puestas probablemente habrían sido aún más significativas, y el modelo de Poteshman8217s dado aún más confirmación de 8220un actividad de mercado de opciones inusuales8221, pero eso habría hecho que la idea de presciencia fuera más probable asi que. Obviamente las noticias de AMR eran menos significativas, pero todavía diríamos que usted no puede juzgar con exactitud la importancia de estos oficios hasta que usted lo tome en la consideración. Otra complicación viene aquí en el hecho de que los volúmenes puestos en estas partes eran normalmente bajos, de lo que hemos leído, y esto obviamente hace más fácil para los puntos a aparecer. La Comisión del 11-S dijo: Un inversionista institucional con sede en Estados Unidos, sin vínculos imaginables con Al Qaeda, compró el 95 por ciento de la UAL el 6 de septiembre como parte de una estrategia comercial que también incluyó 115.000 acciones de American el 10 de septiembre. , Gran parte de la negociación aparentemente sospechosa en Estados Unidos el 10 de septiembre se remontó a un boletín de comercio de opciones basado en Estados Unidos, enviado por fax a sus suscriptores el domingo 9 de septiembre, que recomendaba estas operaciones. El 6 de septiembre UAL pone aparecería automáticamente significativo, entonces, a pesar de que sólo un inversionista estaba supuestamente detrás de ellos. Pero eso realmente significa que puede indicar matemáticamente que es probable que el inversionista tuviera conocimiento previo del 11-S, sin considerar las condiciones del mercado y la información disponible en ese momento. Y es una historia similar con las operaciones de AMR. Los boletines de noticias y los tipsters compartidos entregan puntos en negociar diario, por lo menos aquí en el Reino Unido. Hubo malas noticias el viernes que bien podría haber justificado el boletín sugiriendo que se compran (y si esa noticia se filtró o se sospechaba antes del lanzamiento entonces usted podría tener una explicación para las compras anteriores). El profesor Poteshman parece estar diciendo que los comerciantes estaban más pesimistas sobre el futuro de la AMR de lo que deberían haber sido, que reaccionaron exageradamente a las noticias y compraron más pujas de lo que esperaban, pero quizá sus estadísticas se basaran principalmente en las operaciones Decisiones individuales (una institución o un particular decide comprar algunas put). Los boletines siempre son así. Muchos son comprados por personas que hacen poca investigación ellos mismos, y simplemente siguen las recomendaciones proporcionadas. Por lo tanto si el autor del boletín de noticias dice 8220buy puts8221, entonces that8217s qué muchos de ellos harán, y cuanto más alta la circulación del boletín de noticias, mayor el punto resultante de 8220abnormal trades8221 será. De todos modos, Screw Loose Change planteó un problema similar o dos que usted podría considerar. Y por favor no termine esto aquí: vaya a leer el papel de Poteshman8217s. Sólo para evaluar esto por ti mismo. Si you8217re no grande en las estadísticas, entonces algunos de ellos hará que sus ojos glaze más, garantizado, pero también hay comentarios interesantes que son accesibles a todo el mundo, por lo general it8217s vale la pena una read. Insider Trading Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indica Foreknowledge Transacciones financieras en los días antes del ataque sugieren que ciertos individuos usaron el conocimiento previo del ataque para cosechar enormes beneficios. 1 Las evidencias de abuso de información privilegiada incluyen: Fuertes aumentos en las compras de opciones de venta en las acciones de las dos aerolíneas utilizadas en el ataque - United Airlines y American Airlines Surges en compras de opciones de venta de las compañías de reaseguros que se espera pagar miles de millones para cubrir Pérdidas del ataque - Munich Re y el grupo AXA Surge en compras de opciones de venta sobre acciones de empresas de servicios financieros perjudicados por el ataque - Merrill Lynch amp Co. y Morgan Stanley y Bank of America Aumento enorme en compras de opciones de compra de Stock de un fabricante de armas que se espera ganar con el ataque - Raytheon enormes aumentos en las compras de bonos del Tesoro estadounidense a 5 años En cada caso, las compras anómalas se tradujeron en grandes ganancias tan pronto como el mercado de valores se abrió una semana después del ataque: Las opciones se utilizaron en acciones que se verían afectadas por el ataque, y las opciones de compra se utilizaron en las acciones que se beneficiarían. Las opciones de compra y venta son contratos que permiten a sus titulares vender y comprar activos, respectivamente, a precios especificados en una fecha determinada. Las opciones de venta permiten a sus titulares beneficiarse de los descensos en los valores de las acciones porque permiten que las acciones sean compradas a precio de mercado y vendidas por el precio de la opción más alta. La relación entre el volumen de contratos de opción de venta y los contratos de opción de compra se denomina relación de put / call. La proporción suele ser inferior a uno, con un valor de alrededor de 0,8 considerado normal. 2 Los perdedores American Airlines y United Airlines y varias compañías de seguros y bancos registraron enormes pérdidas en el valor de las acciones cuando los mercados se abrieron el 17 de septiembre. Las opciones de venta - instrumentos financieros que permiten a los inversores beneficiarse con la disminución del valor de las acciones - Sobre las acciones de estas empresas en gran volumen en la semana anterior al ataque. United Airlines y American Airlines Dos de las empresas más dañadas por el ataque fueron American Airlines (AMR), el operador de los vuelos 11 y 77 y United Airlines (UAL), el operador del vuelo 175 y el vuelo 93. Según CBS News . En la semana anterior al ataque, la relación de put / call para American Airlines era de cuatro. 3 La relación de put / call para United Airlines fue 25 veces superior a la normal el 6 de septiembre. 4 Este gráfico muestra un aumento dramático en las compras de opciones de venta previas a las líneas aéreas utilizadas en el ataque. (Fuente: www. optionsclearing) Los picos en las opciones de venta ocurrieron en días que fueron sin incidentes para las aerolíneas y sus precios de acciones. El 6 y 7 de septiembre, cuando no hubo noticias significativas o movimiento de precios de acciones en el que participó United, la bolsa de Chicago manejó 4.744 opciones de venta de acciones de UAL, en comparación con sólo 396 opciones de compra. El 10 de septiembre, un día sin complicaciones para los estadounidenses, el volumen fue de 748 llamadas y 4.516 put, basado en un cheque de los registros de operaciones de opciones. 5 Bloomberg News informó que las opciones de venta en las aerolíneas subieron a la fenomenal alta de 285 veces su promedio. Más de tres días antes de que los terroristas aplastaran el World Trade Center y dañaran el Pentágono, hubo más de 25 veces el promedio diario anterior de operaciones en una opción de Morgan Stanley que gana dinero cuando las acciones caen por debajo de 45. El comercio con opciones similares de AMR y UAL, Que ganan dinero cuando sus acciones caen por debajo de 30 cada uno, subieron hasta 285 veces el promedio de cotización hasta ese momento. 6 Cuando el mercado volvió a abrir después del ataque, las acciones de United Airlines cayeron un 42 por ciento, de 30,82 a 17,50 por acción, y las acciones de American Airlines cayeron 39 por ciento, de 29,70 a 18,00 por acción. 7 Empresas de reaseguros Se espera que varias empresas del sector de reaseguros sufran enormes pérdidas por el ataque: Munich Re de Alemania y Swiss Re de Suiza - los dos mayores reaseguradores del mundo y el Grupo AXA de Francia. En septiembre de 2001, el San Francisco Chronicle estimó el pasivo de 1,5 mil millones para Munich Re y 0,55 mil millones para el Grupo AXA y telegraph. co. uk estimó el pasivo de 1,2 mil millones para Munich Re y 0,83 mil millones para Swiss Re. 8 9 La negociación de acciones de Munich Re fue casi el doble de su nivel normal el 6 de septiembre y 7, y las acciones de Swiss Re superaron el doble de su nivel normal el 7 de septiembre. 10 Merrill Lynch y Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley Dean Witter amp Co. y Merrill Lynch amp Co. fueron sede en el bajo Manhattan en el momento del ataque. Morgan Stanley ocupó 22 pisos de la Torre Norte y Merrill Lynch tenía sede cerca de las Torres Gemelas. Morgan Stanley, que vio un promedio de 27 opciones de venta en sus acciones compradas por día antes del 6 de septiembre, vio 2,157 opciones de venta compradas en los tres días hábiles antes del ataque. Merrill Lynch, que vio un promedio de 252 opciones de compra en sus acciones compradas por día antes del 5 de septiembre, vio 12.215 opciones de compra compradas en los cuatro días de negociación antes del ataque. La acción de Morgan Stanley cayó 13 y la acción de Merrill Lynchs cayó 11.5 cuando el mercado reabrió. 11 Bank of America mostró un aumento de cinco veces en el comercio de opciones de venta el jueves y el viernes antes del ataque. Una opción de Bank of America que obtendría beneficios si el número de acciones de los bancos estadounidenses cayera por debajo de 60 por acción había negociado más de 5.900 contratos el jueves y el viernes antes de los ataques del 11 de septiembre, casi cinco veces el promedio anterior de operaciones, según Bloomberg datos. Las acciones de los bancos cayeron un 11,5 por ciento a 51 en la primera semana después de que el comercio se reanudara el 17 de septiembre. 12 Ganadores Mientras que la mayoría de las compañías verían disminuir sus valoraciones de valores a raíz del ataque, , Reflejando el nuevo negocio que estaban preparados para recibir. Raytheon Raytheon, fabricante de misiles Patriot y Tomahawk, vio sus acciones dispararse inmediatamente después del ataque. Las compras de opciones de compra en acciones de Raytheon se multiplicaron por seis el día anterior al ataque. Una opción de Raytheon que hace el dinero si las partes son más de 25 cada uno tenía 232 contratos de las opciones negociados el día antes de los ataques, casi seis veces el número total de comercios que habían ocurrido antes de ese día. Un contrato representa opciones sobre 100 acciones. Las acciones de Raytheon se dispararon casi un 37 por ciento a 34,04 durante la primera semana de operaciones estadounidenses después del ataque. 13 Raytheon ha sido multado con millones de dólares inflacionando los costos de equipo que vende el ejército estadounidense. Raytheon tiene una filial secreta, E-Systems, cuyos clientes han incluido la CIA y la NSA. 14 Notas del Tesoro de Estados Unidos Las notas del Tesoro de Estados Unidos a cinco años se compraron en volúmenes anormalmente altos antes del ataque, y sus compradores fueron recompensados con fuertes aumentos en su valor después del ataque. El Wall Street Journal informó el 2 de octubre que la investigación en curso de la SEC en operaciones bursátiles sospechosas se había unido a una investigación del Servicio Secreto sobre un volumen inusualmente alto de compras de billetes del Tesoro estadounidense a cinco años antes de los ataques. Las transacciones de la nota del Tesoro incluyeron un único comercio de 5 mil millones. Como explica el Diario: Las notas del Tesoro a cinco años se encuentran entre las mejores inversiones en caso de una crisis mundial, especialmente una que afecta a Estados Unidos. Las notas son apreciadas por su seguridad y su respaldo por el gobierno de EE. UU., y por lo general se reúnen cuando los inversores huyen de inversiones más arriesgadas, como las acciones. El valor de estas notas, señaló el Diario, ha aumentado considerablemente desde los acontecimientos del 11 de septiembre. 15 La investigación de las SEC Poco después del ataque, la SEC distribuyó una lista de acciones a firmas de valores alrededor del mundo que buscaban información. 16 Un artículo ampliamente difundido señala que las acciones señaladas por la SEC incluyeron las de las siguientes compañías: American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, aerolíneas de US Airways, Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp. Express Corp., American International Group, AMR Corporation, AXA SA, Bank of America Corp., Bank of New York Corp., Bank One Corp., Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp., Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc. L - 3 Communications Holdings, Inc. LTV Corporation, Marsh, McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp. General Motors, Raytheon, WR Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. , Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc. Fideicomiso Vornado Reality, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter amp Co. XL Capital Ltd. y Bear Stearns. Un artículo del 19 de octubre en el San Francisco Chronicle informó que la SEC, después de un período de silencio, había emprendido la acción sin precedentes de suplir a cientos de funcionarios privados en su investigación: El sistema propuesto, que entraría en vigor de inmediato, Si no miles, de actores clave del sector privado. . En una declaración de dos páginas emitida a todas las entidades relacionadas con valores en todo el país, la SEC pidió a las compañías que designaran personal superior que apreciara la naturaleza delicada del caso y pudiera confiar en ellos para ejercer la discreción apropiada como personas que vinculan a los investigadores gubernamentales con la industria. 17 Michael Ruppert, ex oficial de LAPD, explica las consecuencias de esta acción: Lo que sucede cuando usted suplena a alguien en una investigación de seguridad nacional o criminal es que usted hace ilegal que divulguen públicamente lo que saben. Movimiento inteligente. En efecto, se convierten en agentes del gobierno y son controlados por las regulaciones gubernamentales más que por su propia conciencia. De hecho, pueden ser lanzados en la cárcel sin una audiencia si hablan públicamente. He visto esta amenaza implícita una y otra vez con investigaciones federales, agentes de inteligencia e incluso miembros del Congreso de los Estados Unidos que están tan estrechamente vinculados por juramentos secretos y acuerdos que ni siquiera son capaces de revelar actividades criminales dentro del gobierno por temor a encarcelamiento. 18 Interpretación y Reinterpretación de los Datos Un análisis de los informes de prensa sobre el tema del insider trading aparente relacionado con el ataque muestra una tendencia, con informes tempranos resaltando las anomalías, y informes posteriores excusándolos. En su libro Crossing the Rubicon, Michael C. Ruppert ilustra este punto al extraer primero una serie de informes publicados poco después del ataque: Un salto en UAL (United Airlines) puso opciones 90 veces (no 90 por ciento) por encima de lo normal entre el 6 y el septiembre 10 y 285 veces más alto que el promedio del jueves anterior al ataque. - CBS News, 26 de septiembre Un salto en American Airlines puso opciones 60 veces (no un 60 por ciento) por encima de lo normal el día antes de los ataques. - CBS News, 26 de septiembre No se ha producido ninguna transacción similar en ninguna otra aerolínea - Informe de Bloomberg, el Instituto para el Contraterrorismo (ICT), Herzliyya, Israel, citando datos de la CBOE 3 Morgan Stanley vio, entre el 7 de septiembre y el 10 de septiembre, Aumento de 27 veces (no 27 por ciento) en la compra de opciones de venta sobre sus acciones. 4 Merrill-Lynch vio un salto de más de 12 veces el nivel normal de opciones de venta en los cuatro días hábiles antes de los ataques. 5 Extractos NOTAS 3. Mecánica de la posible estafa de información privilegiada de Bin Laden, Instituto Internacional de Políticas contra el Terrorismo de Herzlyya, 22 de septiembre de 2001. Michael C. Ruppert, El caso de la Administración Bush Conocimiento Avanzado de los ataques del 9-11 Wilderness 22 de abril de 2002. Publicado en el Centro de Investigación y Globalización ltwww. globalresearch. ca/articles/RUP203Agt. 4. TIC, op. Cit, citando datos de la Junta de Chicago de Opciones de Intercambio (CBOE). . Terroristas entrenados en CBPE. Chicago Sun-Times. 20 de septiembre de 2001, www. suntimes / terror / stories / cst-nws-trade20gt. Sonda de opciones de enlace comercial a los ataques confirmados,. Chicago Sun-Times. 21 de septiembre de 2001, www. suntimes / terror / stories / cst-fin-trade21gt. Ruppert luego ilustra un aparente intento de enterrar la historia explicándola como nada inusual. Un artículo del New York Times del 30 de septiembre afirma que las explicaciones benignas están apareciendo en la investigación de las SEC. 20 El artículo culpa a la actividad en las opciones de venta, que no cuantifica, sobre el pesimismo del mercado, pero no explica por qué el precio de las acciones en las aerolíneas no refleja el mismo pesimismo del mercado. El hecho de que 2,5 millones de las opciones de venta no fueron reclamadas no se explica en absoluto por el pesimismo del mercado, y es la evidencia de que los compradores de la opción de venta formaban parte de una conspiración criminal. 21 1. Operaciones de información privilegiada aparentemente basadas en el conocimiento previo de los ataques del 11-S, London Times. 9/18/01 en caché 2. Ratio de Put / Call, StreetAuthority, 3. Aprovechando el Desastre. CBSNews. 9/19/01 en caché 4. Precios, Probabilidades y Predicciones, OR / MS Hoy, en caché 5. Intercambio examina salto extra, Associated Press. 9/18/01 en caché 6. SEC pregunta Goldman, Lehman de datos, Bloomberg News. 9/20/01 en caché 7. Negro Martes: El más grande del mundo Insider trading estafa. Ict. org. il. 19 de septiembre de 2001 en caché 8. Lucros sospechosos se sientan no cobrados Los inversores de aerolíneas parecen estar acostado bajo, San Francisco Chronicle. 9/29/01 caché 9. Beneficios de la perdición, telegraph. co. uk. 9/23/01 en caché 10. Beneficios de la perdición. 9/23/01 11. Martes Negro. 9/19/01 12. Bank of America entre 38 acciones en la sonda de ataque SEC, Bloomberg News. 10/3/01 en caché 13. Bank of America. 10/3/01 14. Raytheon, corpwatch. org, 15. Puntos comerciales sospechosos para avanzar en el conocimiento de los grandes inversores de los ataques del 11 de septiembre, wsws. org. 10/5/01 en caché 16. Bank of America. 10/3/01 17. SEC quiere un sistema de intercambio de datos La red de corretaje ayudaría a rastrear las operaciones de los terroristas, San Francisco Chronicle. 9/19/01 en caché 18. Cruzando el Rubicón ,. Página 243 19. Cruzando el Rubicón ,. Página 238-239,634 20. Si el conocimiento previo de los ataques estadounidenses fue utilizado con fines de lucro, New York Times. 9/30/01 en caché 21. Ganancias sospechosas. 9/29/01 página modificada por última vez: 2007-08-21Mrz 20th, 2012 Comentario del decotiviert fr Negociación con información privilegiada 9/11 8230 los hechos puestos al descubierto UNA INVESTIGACIÓN EXCLUSIVA ONLINE DE ASIA TIMES: No puede haber ninguna disputa que el comercio especulativo en las opciones de venta 8211 donde Un partido apuesta que una acción caerá abruptamente en el valor 8211 aumentó en los días alrededor del 11 de septiembre de 2001 8211 incluso si la Comisión de Valores y Bolsa de los Estados Unidos y la Comisión 9/11 no lo dirán. Más de unas pocas personas debieron haber recibido una advertencia anticipada de los ataques terroristas y cobraron millones de dólares. El siguiente artículo fue publicado primero en Asia Times Online en: ¿Existe alguna verdad en las acusaciones de que los círculos informados obtuvieron beneficios sustanciales en los mercados financieros en relación con los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001 en los Estados Unidos? Para empezar es mediante el examen de las opciones de venta, que se produjo alrededor del martes, 11 de septiembre de 2001, en un grado anormal, y en un principio a través de software que desempeñó un papel clave: el Prosecutor8217s Management Information System, abreviado como PROMIS. I PROMIS es un programa de software que parece estar equipado con casi 8222magical8220 habilidades. Además, es el tema de una disputa de décadas de duración entre su inventor, Bill Hamilton, y varias personas / instituciones asociadas con agencias de inteligencia, empresas de consultoría militar y de seguridad. 1 One of the 8222magical8220 capabilities of PROMIS, one has to assume, is that it is equipped with artificial intelligence and was apparently from the outset able to simultaneously read and integrate any number of different computer programs or databases, regardless of the language in which the original programs had been written or the operating systems and platforms on which that database was then currently installed.8220 2 And then it becomes really interesting: What would you do if you possessed software that could think, understand every major language in the world, that provided peep-holes into everyone elses computer 8222dressing rooms8220, that could insert data into computers without peoples knowledge, that could fill in blanks beyond human reasoning, and also predict what people do 8211 before they did it You would probably use it, wouldn8217t you 3 Granted, these capabilities sound hardly believable. In fact, the whole story of PROMIS, which Mike Ruppert develops in the course of his book Crossing the Rubicon in all its bizarre facets and turns, seems as if someone had developed a novel in the style of Philip K Dick and William Gibson. However, what Ruppert has collected about PROMIS is based on reputable sources as well as on results of personal investigations, which await a jury to take a first critical look at. This seems all the more urgent if you add to the PROMIS capabilities 8222that it was a given that PROMIS was used for a wide variety of purposes by intelligence agencies, including the real-time monitoring of stock transactions on all the worlds major financial markets8220. 4 We are therefore dealing with a software that a) Infiltrates computer and communication systems without being noticed. b) Can manipulate data. c) Is capable to track the global stock market trade in real time. Point c is relevant to all that happened in connection with the never completely cleared up transactions that occurred just before September 11, 5 and of which the former chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Weltke said 8222could not have been planned and carried out without a certain knowledge8220. 6 I specifically asked financial journalist Max Keiser, who for years had worked on Wall Street as a stock and options trader, about the put option trades. Keiser pointed out in this context that he 8222had spoken with many brokers in the towers of the World Trade Center around that time. I heard firsthand about the airline put trade from brokers at Cantor Fitzgerald days before.8220 He then talked with me about an explosive issue, on which Ruppert elaborated in detail in Crossing the Rubicon . Max Keiser: There are many aspects concerning these option purchases that have not been disclosed yet. I also worked at Alex Brown amp Sons (ABS). Deutsche Bank bought Alex Brown amp Sons in 1999. When the attacks occurred, ABS was owned by Deutsche Bank. An important person at ABS was Buzzy Krongard. I have met him several times at the offices in Baltimore. Krongard had transferred to become executive director at the CIA. The option purchases, in which ABS was involved, occurred in the offices of ABS in Baltimore. The noise which occurred between Baltimore, New York City and Langley was interesting, as you can imagine, to say the least. Under consideration here is the fact that Alex Brown, a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank (where many of the alleged 9/11 hijackers handled their banking transactions 8211 for example Mohammed Atta) traded massive put options purchases on United Airlines Company UAL through the Chicago Board Option Exchange (CBOE) 8211 8222to the embarrassment of investigators8220, as British newspaper The Independent reported. 7 On September 12, the chairman of the board of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, Mayo A Shattuck III, suddenly and quietly renounced his post, although he still had a three-year contract with an annual salary of several million US dollars. One could perceive that as somehow strange. A few weeks later, the press spokesperson of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at that time, Tom Crispell, declined all comments, when he was contacted for a report for Rupperts website From the Wilderness, and had being asked 8222whether the Treasury Department or FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation had questioned CIA executive director and former Deutsche Bank-Alex Brown CEO chief executive officer, A B 8218Buzzy8216 Krongard, about CIA monitoring of financial markets using PROMIS and his former position as overseer of Brown8217s 8218private client8216 relations.8220 8 Just before he was recruited personally by former CIA chief George Tenet for the CIA, Krongard supervised mainly private client banking at Alex Brown. 9 In any case, after 9/11 on the first trading day, when the US stock markets were open again, the stock price of UAL declined by 43. (The four aircraft hijacked on September 11 were American Airlines Flight 11, American Airlines Flight 77 and UAL flights 175 and 93.) With his background as a former options trader, Keiser explained an important issue to me in that regard. Max Keiser: Put options are, if they are employed in a speculative trade, basically bets that stock prices will drop abruptly. The purchaser, who enters a time-specific contract with a seller, does not have to own the stock at the time when the contract is purchased. Related to the issue of insider trading via (put or call) options there is also a noteworthy definition by the Swiss economists Remo Crameri, Marc Chesney and Loriano Mancini, notably that an option trade may be 8222identified as informed8220 8211 but is not yet (legally) proven 8211 8222when it is characterized by an unusual large increment in open interest and volume, induces large gains, and is not hedged in the stock market8220. 10 Open interest describes contracts which have not been settled (been exercised) by the end of the trading session, but are still open. Not hedged in the stock market means that the buyer of a (put or call) option holds no shares of the underlying asset, by which he might be able to mitigate or compensate losses if his trade doesn8217t work out, or phrased differently: one does not hedge, because it is unnecessary, since one knows that the bet is one, pardon, 8222dead sure thing.8220 (In this respect it is thus not really a bet, because the result is not uncertain, but a foregone conclusion.) In this case, the vehicle of the calculation was 8222ridiculously cheap put options which give the holder the right8216 for a period of time to sell certain shares at a price which is far below the current market price 8211 which is a highly risky bet, because you lose money if at maturity the market price is still higher than the price agreed in the option. However, when these shares fell much deeper after the terrorist attacks, these options multiplied their value several hundred times because by now the selling price specified in the option was much higher than the market price. These risky games with short options are a sure indication for investors who knew that within a few days something would happen that would drastically reduce the market price of those shares.8220 11 Software such as PROMIS in turn is used with the precise intent to monitor the stock markets in real time to track price movements that appear suspicious. Therefore, the US intelligence services must have received clear warnings from the singular, never before sighted transactions prior to 9/11. Of great importance with regard to the track, which should lead to the perpetrators if you were seriously contemplating to go after them, is this: Max Keiser: The Options Clearing Corporation has a duty to handle the transactions, and does so rather anonymously 8211 whereas the bank that executes the transaction as a broker can determine the identity of both parties. But that may have hardly ever been the intention of the regulatory authorities when the track led to, amongst others, Alvin Bernard 8222Buzzy8220 Krongard, Alex Brown amp Sons and the CIA. Ruppert, however, describes this case in Crossing the Rubicon in full length as far as possible. 12 In addition, there are also ways and means for insiders to veil their tracks. In order to be less obvious, 8222the insiders could trade small numbers of contracts. These could be traded under multiple accounts to avoid drawing attention to large trading volumes going through one single large account. They could also trade small volumes in each contract but trade more contracts to avoid drawing attention. As open interest increases, non-insiders may detect a perceived signal and increase their trading activity. Insiders can then come back to enter into more transactions based on a seemingly significant trade signal from the market. In this regard, it would be difficult for the CBOE to ferret out the insiders from the non-insiders, because both are trading heavily.8220 13 The matter which needs clarification here is generally judged by Keiser as follows: Max Keiser: My thought is that many (not all) of those who died on 9/11 were financial mercenaries 8211 and we should feel the same about them as we feel about all mercenaries who get killed. The tragedy is that these companies mixed civilians with mercenaries, and that they were also killed. So have companies on Wall Street used civilians as human shields maybe According to a report by Bloomberg published in early October 2001, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began a probe into certain stock market transactions around 9/11 that included 38 companies, among them: American Airlines, United Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp. American Express Corp. American International Group, AXA SA, Bank of America Corp. Bank of New York Corp. Bear Stearns, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Morgan Stanley, General Motors and Raytheon. 14 So far, so good. In the same month, however, the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper reported that the SEC took the unprecedented step to deputize hundreds, if not even thousands of key stakeholders in the private sector for their investigation. In a statement that was sent to almost all listed companies in the US, the SEC asked the addressed companies to assign senior staff for the investigation, who would be aware of 8222the sensitive nature8220 of the case and could be relied on to 8222exercise appropriate discretion8220. 15 In essence, it was about controlling information, not about provision and disclosure of facts. Such a course of action involves compromising consequences. Ruppert: What happens when you deputize someone in a national security or criminal investigation is that you make it illegal for them to disclose publicly what they know. Movimiento inteligente. In effect, they become government agents and are controlled by government regulations rather than their own conscience. In fact, they can be thrown into jail without a hearing if they talk publicly. I have seen this implied threat time after time with federal investigators, intelligence agents, and even members of United States Congress who are bound so tightly by secrecy oaths and agreements that they are not even able to disclose criminal activities inside the government for fear of incarceration. 16 Among the reports about suspected insider trading which are mentioned in Crossing the Rubicon /From the Wilderness is a list that was published under the heading 8222Black Tuesday: The World8217s Largest Insider Trading Scam8220 by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism on September 21, 2001: Between September 6 and 7, the CBOE saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options. Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these 8222insiders8220 would have profited by almost 5 million. On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent 8222insiders8220, they would represent a gain of about 4 million. The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal. No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter amp Co, which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October 45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley8217s share price fell from 48.90 to 42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least 1.2 million. Merrill Lynch amp Co, with headquarters near the Twin Towers, saw 12,215 October 45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day (a 1200 increase). When trading resumed, Merrill8217s shares fell from 46.88 to 41.50 assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by 8222insiders8220, their profit would have been about 5.5 million. European regulators are examining trades in Germany8217s Munich Re, Switzerland8217s Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. (Note: AXA also owns more than 25 of American Airlines stock, making the attacks a 8222double whammy8220 for them.) 17 Concerning the statements of the former chairman of the Deutsche Bundesbank Ernst Welteke, their tenor in various press reports put together is as follows: German central bank president Ernst Welteke later reports that a study by his bank indicates, 8222There are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge,8220 not only in shares of heavily affected industries such as airlines and insurance companies, but also in gold and oil. Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001 His researchers have found 8222almost irrefutable proof of insider trading8220. Miami Herald, 9/24/2001 8222If you look at movements in markets before and after the attack, it makes your brow furrow. But it is extremely difficult to really verify it.8220 Nevertheless, he believes that 8222in one or the other case it will be possible to pinpoint the source8220. Fox News, 9/22/2001 Welteke reports 8222a fundamentally inexplicable rise8220 in oil prices before the attacks Miami Herald, 9/24/2001 and then a further rise of 13 percent the day after the attacks. Gold rises nonstop for days after the attacks. Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001 18 Related to those observations, I sent a request via e-mail to the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank on August 1, 2011, from which I was hoping to learn: How did the Bundesbank deal with this information Did US federal agencies ask to see the study With whom did the Bundesbank share this information And additionally: 1. Can you confirm that there is such a study of the Bundesbank concerning 9/11 insider trading, which was carried out in September 2001 2. If Yes: what is the title 3. If Yes: who were the authors 4. If Yes: has the study ever been made available to the public On August 2, I was then informed: 8222Your mail has been received by us and is being processed under the number 2011 / 011551.8220 Ultimately, however, the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank was only available for an oral explanation on the phone. With this explanation, I then turned to the press office of the federal financial regulator in Germany, the Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht, BaFin, with the following e-mail 8211 and that because of obvious reasons: Yesterday, I sent a request (see end of this e-mail) to the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank relating to insider trading connected to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and respectively relating to an alleged study carried by the Deutsche Bundesbank. The request carries the reference number 2011 / 011551. The press office or respectively Mr Peter Trautmann was only available for an oral explanation. I repeat this now, because it is related to your entity. This will be followed by my further questions. According to an oral explanation from the press office of the Deutsche Bundesbank, there has never been a detailed and official study on insider trading from the Bundesbank. Rather, there has been probably ad-hoc analysis with corresponding charts of price movements as briefings for the Bundesbank board. In addition, it would have been the duty of the Bundesfinanzaufsicht to investigate this matter. The press office of the Bundesbank was also not willing to give out any written information, not even after my hint that this alleged study by the Bundesbank has been floating around the Internet for years without any contradiction. That was the oral information from the Bundesbank press office, or respectively from Mr Peter Trautmann. Now my questions for you: 1. Has the BaFin ever investigated the 9/11 insider trading 2. With what result Have the results been made public 3. Have there not been any grounds for suspicion that would have justified an investigation, for example as damaged enterprise: Munich Re, and as buyers of put options of UAL8217s United Airlines Company: Deutsche Bank/Alex Brown 4. Has the Deutsche Bundesbank ever enquired with BaFin what information they have regarding the 9/11 insider trading 8211 for example for the creation of ad-hoc analysis for the Bundesbank 5. Have the US federal agencies ever inquired if the BaFin could cooperate with them in an investigation Could you reply to me in writing, unlike the Deutsche Bundesbank, please I would be very grateful for that The next day I did indeed receive an e-mail concerning this topic from Anja Engelland, the press officer of the BaFin in which she answered my questions as follows: 1. Yes, the former Bundesaufsichtsamt fur Wertpapierhandel, BAWe (federal supervisory for securities trading), has carried out a comprehensive analysis of the operations. 2. As a result, no evidence of insider trading has been found. Their approach and results have been published by the BAWe or BaFin in the annual reports for the years 2001 (cf S 26/27) and 2002 (cf p 156 above first paragraph). Here are the links. See here and here . 3. See annual reports 2001 and 2002. Put options on United Airlines were not traded on German stock exchanges (the first EUREX options on US equities were introduced only after the attacks on 9/11/2001) there were warrants on UAL and other US stocks, but those traded only in low volumes. 4. I personally do not know about such a request. Furthermore, the Bundesbank itself would have to comment on this. 5. BaFin is fundamentally entitled to the exchange of information with foreign supervisory authorities, like SEC, on the basis of written agreements, so-called memoranda of understanding (MoU). Regarding potential inquiries from foreign supervisory authorities, the BaFin can unfortunately not comment, this would be a matter of respective authority. For this I ask for understanding. Then I wrote another brief note to BaFin, 8222in order to prevent any misunderstanding: your answers refers, as far as I understand, solely to the financial markets in Germany and Frankfurt, or not8220 The reply from BaFin: The answers refer to the German financial market as a whole and not only on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. In terms of the assessment of foreign financial markets, the relevant authorities are the competent points of contact. In my inquiries, I mentioned, among other things, a scientific study by US economist Allen M Poteshman from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which had been carried out in 2006 regarding the put option trading around 9/11 related to the two airlines involved, United Airlines and American Airlines. Poteshman came to this conclusion: 8222Examination of the option trading leading up to September 11 reveals that there was an unusually high level of put buying. This finding is consistent with informed investors having traded options in advance of the attacks.8220 19 Another scientific study was conducted by the economists Wong Wing-Keung (Hong Kong Baptist University, HKBU), Howard E Thompson (University of Wisconsin) and Kweehong Teh (National University of Singapore, NUS), whose findings were published in April 2010 under the title 8222Was there Abnormal Trading in the SampP 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks8220 Motivated by the fact that there had been many media reports about possible insider trading prior to 9/11 in the option markets, the authors looked in this study at the Standard amp Poor8217s 500 Index (SPX Index Options), in particular with a focus on strategies emanating from a bear market, namely those under the labels 8222Put Purchase,8220 8222Put Bear Spread8220 and 8222Naked ITM Call Write8220, as each of these are in accordance with the assumption that one would be betting on a general bear market if one wanted to profit in anticipation of the 9/11 event. 20 Along these lines, the authors refer to an article which Erin E Arvedlund published on October 8, 2001, in Barron8217s, the heading of which suggested precisely that thesis: 8222Follow the money: Terror plotters could have benefited more from the fall of the entire market than from individual stocks.8220 21 Basically, Wong, Thompson and Teh came to the conclusion 8222that our findings show that there was a significant abnormal increase in the trading volume in the option market just before the 9-11 attacks in contrast with the absence of abnormal trading volume far before the attacks8220. More specifically, they stated, 8222Our findings from the out-of-the-money (OTM), at-the-money (ATM) and in-the-money (ITM) SPX index put options and ITM SPX index call options lead us to reject the null hypotheses that there was no abnormal trading in these contracts before September 11th.8220 Instead, they found evidence for 8222abnormal trading volume in OTM, ATM and ITM SPX index put options8220 for September 2001, and also in 8222ITM-SPX index call options8220 for the same month. 8222In addition, we find that there was evidence of abnormal trading in the September 2001 OTM, ATM and ITM SPX index put options immediately after the 9-11 attacks and before the expiration date. This suggests that owning a put was a valuable investment and those who owned them could sell them for a considerable profit before the expiration date.8220 From all of this, they took the position that whilst they couldn8217t definitively prove that insiders were active in the market, 8222our results provide credible circumstantial evidence to support the insider trading claim8220. 22 Disambiguation: 8222in the money8220 means that the circumstances arise on which the owner of a put option is betting 8211 the market price of the underlying asset, for example a stock (or in this case an index of shares), is lower at that moment compared to the price at the time when the transaction took place. 8222At the money8220 means that the price of the underlying asset has remained equal or nearly equal. And 8222out-of-the-money8220 means that the price of the underlying asset has gone up, so the opposite of what the owner of the put option was betting on took place. 8222In the money8220: win. 8222Out of the money8220: loss. There are also ITM, ATM and OTM options both for trading strategies with put and call options, depending on which kind of risk one would like to take. For example, according to Wong, Thomson and Teh, the 8222Put-Purchase Strategy8220 in the case of a downward movement of the underlying asset 8222is a cheaper alternative to short-selling of the underlying asset and it is the simplest way to profit when the price of the underlying asset is expected to decline8220. The use of the OTM put option compared to the ITM put option, however, offers 8222both higher reward and higher risk potentials (8230) if the underlying asset falls substantially in price. However, should the underlying asset decline only moderately in price, the ITM put often proves to be the better choice (8230) because of the relative price differential.8220 That is why speculators would fare best, if they bought ITM put options, 8222unless the speculators would expect a very substantial decline in the price of the underlying asset.8220 23 After they calculated such strategies in the light of the available trading data in the CBOE relating to 9/11, the three economists ultimately do not accept a possible counter-argument that their results could be attributed to the fact that the stock markets were generally falling and that there had already been a negative market outlook. Finally they pointed out: 8222More conclusive evidence is needed to prove definitively that insiders were indeed active in the market. Although we have discredited the possibility of abnormal volume due to the declining market, such investigative work would still be a very involved exercise in view of the multitude of other confounding factors,8220 such as confusing trading strategies, 8222intentionally employed by the insiders8220 in order to attract less attention. 24 That would be 8211 and if only to invalidate these scientific results once and for all 8211 primarily a task for the SEC, the FBI and other governmental authorities of the United States. However, we will have to wait for this in vain. I think that not less worthy of a mention is an article that the French financial magazine Les Echos published in September 2007 about a study conducted by two independent economics professors from the University of Zurich, Marc Chesney and Loriano Mancini. Journalist Marina Alcaraz summarized the content of the findings in Les Echos with these words and with these explanations by Professor Chesney, which I for the first time translated into German (and do now translate from French into English): 8222The atypical volumes, which are very rare for specific stocks lead to the suspicion of insider trading.8220 Six years after the attacks on the World Trade Center this is the disturbing results of a recent study by Marc Chesney and Loriano Mancini, professors at the University of Zurich. The authors, one of them a specialist in derivative products, the other a specialist in econometrics, worked on the sales options that were used to speculate on the decline in the prices of 20 large American companies, particularly in the aerospace and financial sector. Their analysis refers to the execution of transactions between the 6th and 10th of September 2001 compared to the average volumes, which were collected over a long period (10 years for most of the companies). In addition, the two specialists calculated the probability that different options within the same sector in significant volumes would be traded within a few days. 8222We have tried to see if the movements of specific stocks shortly before the attacks were normal.8220 We show that the movements for certain companies such as American Airlines, United Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup, Marsh amp McLehnan are rare from a statistical point of view, especially when compared to the quantities that have been observed for other assets like Coca-Cola or HP,8220 explains Marc Chesney, a former Professor at the HEC and co-author of Blanchiment et financement du terrorisme ( Money laundering and financing of terrorism ), published by Editions Ellipses. 8222For example 1,535 put option contracts on American Airlines with a strike of 30 and expiry in October 2001 were traded on September 10th, in contrast to a daily average of around 24 contracts over the previous three weeks. The fact that the market was currently in a bear market is not sufficient to explain these surprising volumes.8220 The authors also examined the profitability of the put options and trades for an investor who acquired such a product between the 6th and 10th September. 8222For specific titles, the profits were enormous.8220 8222For example, the investors who acquired put options on Citigroup with an expiry in October 2001 could have made more than 15 million profit,8220 he said. On the basis of the connection of data between volumes and profitability, the two authors conclude that 8222the probability that crimes by Insiders (Insider trading) occurred. is very strong in the cases of American Airlines, United Airlines, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan. 8222There is no legal evidence, but these are the results of statistical methods, confirming the signs of irregularities.8220 25 As Alcaraz continued to state for Les Echos, the study by Chesney/Mancini about possible insider trading related to the 9/11 attacks was not the first of its kind but it was in sharp contrast to the findings of the US Securities and Exchange Commission SEC and the 9/11 Commission, since they classified the insider trading as negligible 8211 the trades in question had no connection to 9/11 and had 8222consistently proved innocuous8220. Different in the assessment is also the scientific work that Chesney and Mancini had published together with Remo Crameri in April 2010 at the University of Zurich, 8222Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the option markets.8220 In the segment that is dedicated to the terror attacks of 9/11, the three authors come to the conclusion, that there had been notable insider trading shortly before the terrorist attacks on September 11 that was based on prior knowledge. Without elaborating on the detailed explanation of the mathematical and statistical method, which the scientific trio applied during the examination of the put option transactions on the CBOE for the period between 1996 and 2006, I summarize some of their significant conclusions. 8222Companies like American Airlines, United Airlines, Boeing8220 8211 the latter company is a contractor of the two airlines as aircraft manufacturer 8211 8222and to a lesser extent, Delta Air Lines and KLM seem to have been targets for informed trading activities in the period leading up to the attacks. The number of new put options issued during that period is statistically high and the total gains realized by exercising these options amount to more than 16 million. These findings support the results by Poteshman (2006) who also reports unusual activities in the option market before the terrorist attacks.8220 26 In the banking sector, Chesney, Crameri and Mancini found five informed trading activities in connection to 9/11. 8222For example the number of new put options with underlying stock in Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch issued in the days before the terrorist attacks was at an unusually high level. The realized gains from such trading strategies are around 11 million.8220 27 For both areas, the aviation and the banking sector, the authors state that 8222in nearly all cases the hypothesis8220, that the put options were not hedged, 8222cannot be rejected8220. 28 Regarding the options traded on EUREX, one of the world8217s largest trading places for derivatives, which in 1998 resulted from the merger between the German and Swiss futures exchanges DTB and SOFFEX, Chesney, Mancini and Crameri focused on two reinsurance companies, which incurred costs in terms of billions of dollars in connection with the World Trade Center catastrophe: Munich Re and Swiss Re. On the basis of EUREX trading data provided by Deutsche Bank, the three scientists detected one informed option trade related to Munich Re, which occurred on August 30, 2001. The authors write: 8222The detected put option with underlying Munich Re matured at the end of September 2001 and had a strike of 320 (the underlying asset was traded at 300, 86 on August 30th). That option shows a large increment in open interest of 996 contracts (at 92.2 quintile of its two-year empirical distribution) on August 30th. Its price on that day was 10, 22. 8230 On the day of the terrorist attacks, the underlying stock lost more than 15 (the closing price on September 10th was 261, 88 and on September 11th 220, 53) and the option price jumped to 89, 56, corresponding to a return of 776 in eight trading days. 8230 The gains 8230 related to the exercise of the 996 new put options issued on August 30th correspond to more than 3.4 million.8220 Similar is true, according to the authors, for one informed option trade on Swiss Re on August 20, 2001 with 8222a return of 4,050 in three trading weeks8220, or 8222more than 8 million.8220 29 In a new version of their study that was published on September 7, 2011, the authors stuck to their findings from April 2010. They added the emphasis that in no way the profits gained with the put options to which they point could have been achieved due to sheer fortunate coincidence, but that in fact they were based on prior knowledge which had been exploited. 30 With those results in terms of what went on at the EUREX according to Chesney, Crameri and Mancini, I again addressed the BaFin, which had written to me that for the financial centers in Germany insider trading around 9/11 could be excluded, and asked: How does this go with your information that the federal supervisory for securities trading (BAWe) could in its comprehensive analysis not find evidence for insider trading Do the authors, so to speak, see ghosts with no good reason In addition, I stated: If it is true what Chesney, Crameri and Mancini write, or if you at the BaFin cannot (ad hoc) refute it, would this then cause the BaFin to thoroughly investigate the matter again If the findings of Chesney, Crameri, and Mancini were true, this would constitute illegal transactions relating to a capital crime, which has no status of limitations, or not In case that a need for clarification had arisen at the BaFin, I added Professor Chesney to my e-mail-inquiry in the 8222carbon copy8220 8211 address field, as because these were the results of his scientific work. The response that I received from BaFin employee Dominika Kula was as follows: As I already told you in my e-mail, the former federal supervisory for securities trading (BAWe) carried out a comprehensive analysis of the operations in 2001. As a result, no evidence of insider trading has been found. For clarification purposes, I wish to point out that violations of statutory provisions of securities or criminal law can never be excluded with absolute certainty. In order to pursue and prosecute such matters concrete evidence of an unlawful act is required 8230 Such evidence does not exist here. With regard to the sources you mentioned, I ask for understanding that I can neither comment on scientific analyses, nor on reviews by third parties. Regarding the statutes of limitations for offences relating to the violation insider trading regulations trading I can give you the following information: A violation of the law to prohibit insider trading is punishable with imprisonment up to 5 years or with fines. The statutes of limitations applied for crimes carrying this kind of penalty (section 78 paragraph 3 No. 4 Penal Code) are five years. These limitations are described in the statutes of limitations ( 78 et seq.) (Criminal Code). In addition, I turned to the EUREX with three questions: 1. How do you as EUREX comment on the findings of Messrs Chesney, Mancini and Crameri 2. Did you at EUREX perceive the particular trading in Munich Re and Swiss Re it in any way as strange 3. Have domestic (eg BAWe and BaFin) or foreign (such as the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission) authorities ever inquired if there may have been evidence of insider trading via the EUREX in connection with the 9/11 attacks I subsequently received the following response from Heiner Seidel, the deputy head of the press office of the Deutsche Borse in Frankfurt. We do not give you a public written response on behalf of the Deutsche Brse or Eurex regarding the topics of your inquiry. This is for the following reason: the trade monitoring agency (HSt) is part of the Exchange, but it is independent and autonomous. Their investigations are confidential and are carried out in close coordination with the BaFin. They are never public, a request which HSt is therefore not meaningful. I leave it to the reader to draw his/her conclusions from these two replies from the press offices of BaFin and Deutsche Borse. Regarding the topic of option trades related to 9/11, I once more talked with Swiss historian Dr Daniele Ganser (8222Operation Gladio8220), by asking him this time about the importance of those put options, which were traded shortly before the attacks of September 11, 2001. Daniele Ganser: This is an important point. This is about demonstrating that there was insider trading on the international stock exchanges before 11 September. Specifically put options, ie speculation on falling stock prices were traded. Among the affected stocks were United Airlines and American Airlines, the two airlines involved in the attacks. A colleague of mine, Marc Chesney, professor at the Institute of banking at the University of Zurich, has examined these put options. You first of all have to check if there may have been international speculation that the aviation industry would be experiencing a weak period and whether accordingly also put options on Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa and Swiss were bought. This was not the case. Very significant put option trades were only transacted for these two airlines involved in the attacks. Secondly, you must examine the ratio of put options to call options and look if they had also been purchased to a similarly significant extent that would constitute speculations on rising stock prices. And that is also not the case. There were only significant put options and only significant transactions for United Airlines and American Airlines. Now you need to look further in order to see who actually bought the put options, because that would be the insider who made millions on September 11. Most people are unaware that money was also earned with the attacks on September 11. The Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, however, does not publish the information on who bought the put options, because you can do this anonymously. It is disturbing that this data is not made public. What you have is the 9/11 Commission report, and here it is pointed out. that there has been insider trading, but that this insider trading cannot be traced to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which means that it is highly unlikely that it had been Bin Laden. Question: If this is not pursued any further, what does it mean Daniele Ganser: This means that the investigation of the terrorist attacks was incomplete, and always at the point where there are contradictions to the SURPRISE story, no further investigations are made. It looks very much as if one wants to examine only one story, the investigation is therefore one-sided. But this does not only apply to the put options. 31 Interestingly enough, when Dr Ganser points out in his reply that this important data is not published, it is actually only half of the truth. Why The answer is very simple and odd at the same time: David Callahan, the editor of the US magazine SmartCEO, filed a request to the SEC about the put options which occurred prior to September 11 within the framework of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The SEC informed Callahan in its reply of December 23, 2009 under the number 822209 07659-FOIA8220 as follows: This letter is in response to your request seeking access to and copies of the documentary evidence referred to in footnote 130 of Chapter 5 of the September 11 (9/11) Commission Report8230 We have been advised that the potentially responsive records have been destroyed. 32 Therefore, we will unfortunately never know exactly how the SEC and the 9/11 Commission came to their conclusions regarding the 9/11 put options trading for their final report, because relevant documents were not only held back, but also destroyed 8211 and that in spite of an agreement between the SEC and the National Archive of the United States, in which the SEC has agreed to keep all records for at least 25 years. 33 The 9/11 Commission report wrote this in footnote 130 of Chapter 5, which briefly focuses on the alleged insider trading: Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in advance of 9 / 11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options 8211 investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price 8211 surged in the parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10 8211 highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single US-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific US-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades. These examples typify the evidence examined by the investigation. The SEC and the FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous. (Joseph Cella interview (Sept 16, 2003 May 7, 2004 May 10-11, 2004) FBI briefing (Aug 15, 2003) SEC memo, Division of Enforcement to SEC Chair and Commissioners, 8222Pre-September 11, 2001 Trading Review,8220 May 15, 2002 Ken Breen interview (Apr. 23, 2004) Ed G. interview (Feb. 3, 2004). The author Mark H Gaffney commented on this finding of 8222innocuousness8220: Notice 8230 the commission makes no mention in its footnote of the 36 other companies identified by the SEC in its insider trading probe. What about the pre-9/11 surge in call options for Raytheon, for instance, or the spike in put options for the behemoth Morgan Stanley, which had offices in WTC 2 The 9/11 Commission Report offers not one word of explanation about any of this. The truth, we must conclude, is to be found between the lines in the report8217s conspicuous avoidance of the lion8217s share of the insider trading issue. Indeed, if the trading was truly 8222innocuous8220, as the report states, then why did the SEC muzzle potential whistleblowers by deputizing everyone involved with its investigation The likely answer is that so many players on Wall Street were involved that the SEC could not risk an open process, for fear of exposing the unthinkable. This would explain why the SEC limited the flow of information to those with a 8222need to know8220, which, of course, means that very few participants in the SEC investigation had the full picture. It would also explain why the SEC ultimately named no names. All of which hints at the true and frightening extent of criminal activity on Wall Street in the days and hours before 9/11. The SEC was like a surgeon who opens a patient on the operating room table to remove a tumor, only to sew him back up again after finding that the cancer has metastasized through the system. At an early stage of its investigation, perhaps before SEC officials were fully aware of the implications, the SEC did recommend that the FBI investigate two suspicious transactions. We know about this thanks to a 9/11 Commission memorandum declassified in May 2009 which summarizes an August 2003 meeting at which FBI agents briefed the commission on the insider trading issue. The document indicates that the SEC passed the information about the suspicious trading to the FBI on September 21, 2001, just ten days after the 9/11 attacks. Although the names in both cases are censored from the declassified document, thanks to some nice detective work by Kevin Ryan we know whom (in one case) the SEC was referring to. The identity of the suspicious trader is a stunner that should have become prime-time news on every network, world-wide. Kevin Ryan was able to fill in the blanks because, fortunately, the censor left enough details in the document to identify the suspicious party who, as it turns out, was none other than Wirt Walker III, a distant cousin to then-president G W Bush. Several days before 9/11, Walker and his wife Sally purchased 56,000 shares of stock in Stratesec, one of the companies that provided security at the World Trade Center up until the day of the attacks. Notably, Stratesec also provided security at Dulles International Airport, where AA 77 took off on 9/11, and also security for United Airlines, which owned two of the other three allegedly hijacked aircraft. At the time, Walker was a director of Stratesec. Amazingly, Bush8217s brother Marvin was also on the board. Walker8217s investment paid off handsomely, gaining 50,000 in value in a matter of a few days. Given the links to the World Trade Center and the Bush family, the SEC lead should have sparked an intensive FBI investigation. Yet, incredibly, in a mind-boggling example of criminal malfeasance, the FBI concluded that because Walker and his wife had 8222no ties to terrorism 8230 there was no reason to pursue the investigation.8220 The FBI did not conduct a single interview. 34 For this translation, I asked Kevin Ryan via e-mail if he could send me a link for his 8222nice detective work8220. Ryan, who8217s in my humble opinion one of roughly 10 people around the world who have to be taken seriously regarding 9/11, replied: You are referring to my paper 8222Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11.8220 See here . The following two references from the paper are relevant to what you are describing. 2 9/11 Commission memorandum entitled 8222FBI Briefing on Trading8220. prepared by Doug Greenburg, 18 August 2003, 22. The 9/11 Commission memorandum that summarized the FBI investigations refers to the traders involved in the Stratesec purchase. From the references in the document, we can make out that the two people had the same last name and were related. This fits the description of Wirt and Sally Walker, who were known to be stock holders in Stratesec. Additionally, one (Wirt) was a director at the company, a director at a publicly traded company in Oklahoma (Aviation General), and chairman of an investment firm in Washington, DC (Kuwam Corp). Here are two other recent articles on Stratesec and its operators. See here and here . The stock of Stratesec, I should add by myself, increased in value from 0.75 per share on September 11 to 1.49 per share when the market re-opened on September 17. As a firm that provides technology-based security for large commercial and government facilities, Stratesec benefited from the soaring demand of security companies right after 9/11. It is also remarkable what Ryan wrote to me regarding a company on which he did some research, too: Viisage Corp, another high-tech security firm. Kevin Ryan: In late 2005, George Tenet became a director for Viisage, which had been flagged by the SEC for 9/11 trading but never investigated. Viisage was led by Roger LaPenta, formerly of Lockheed. Seven months later, in 2006, FBI director Louis Freeh also joined the Viisage board. One might think that when both the CIA director (on 9/11) and the FBI director (from 1993 to June 2001) joined a company suspected of 9/11 insider trading, we might want to go back and actually investigate the SEC8217s flagging of that company. But, of course, that was not the case. In 2009, 8222Bandar Bush8220 hired Freeh as his personal attorney. Freeh is nowadays the bankruptcy trustee of the alleged market manipulator MF Global. And about his client, the former Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, I should add that we know for sure that he bankrolled indirectly via his wife two of the alleged would-be 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi. 35 But let8217s get back to the subject of destruction. On September 11, not only human life, aircraft and buildings were destroyed in New York City, but also data on computers and in archives. For example, several federal agencies occupied space in Building 7 of the World Trade Center, including the Securities and Exchange Commission on floors 11 to 13. Those and other data could have given information about the alleged 9/11 insider trading (though it seems to be very unlikely that no backup existed elsewhere independent of the local computer systems). In fact, some technology companies were commissioned to recover damaged hard disks, which had been recovered from the debris and dust of Ground Zero. One of these companies was the English company group Convar, more precisely: their data rescue center in the German city Pirmasens. Erik Kirschbaum from the news agency Reuters reported in December 2001 that Convar had at that time successfully restored information from 32 computers, supporting 8222suspicions that some of the 911 transactions were illegal8220. 8218The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,8216 says Convar director Peter Henschel.8220 36 Convar received the costly orders 8211 according to Kirschbaums report the companies had to pay between 20,000 and 30,000 per rescued computer 8211 in particular from credit card companies, because: 8222There was a sharp rise in credit card transactions moving through some computer systems at the WTC shortly before the planes hit the twin towers. This could be a criminal enterprise 8211 in which case, did they get advance warning Or was it only a coincidence that more than 100 million was rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded8220 37 The companies for which Convar was active cooperated with the FBI. If the data were reconstructed they should have been passed on to the FBI, and the FBI, according to its statutory mandate, should have initiated further investigation based on the data to find out who carried out these transactions. Henschel was optimistic at the time that the sources for the transactions would come to light. Richard Wagner, a Convar employee, told Kirschbaum that 8222illegal transfers of more than 100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster. 8218There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding 100 million,8216 he says. 8218They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed8216.8220 38 Wagner8217s observation that there had been 8222illegal financial transactions shortly before and during the WTC disaster8220 matches an observation which Ruppert describes in Crossing the Rubicon . Ruppert was contacted by an employee of Deutsche Bank, who survived the WTC disaster by leaving the scene when the second aircraft had hit its target. According to the employee, about five minutes before the attack the entire Deutsche Bank computer system had been taken over by something external that no one in the office recognized and every file was downloaded at lightning speed to an unknown location. The employee, afraid for his life, lost many of his friends on September 11, and he was well aware of the role which the Deutsche Bank subsidiary Alex Brown had played in insider trading. 39 I was curious and wanted more information from Convar regarding their work on the WTC-computer hard drives, but also about the statements made by Peter Henschel and Richard Wagner. Thus, I contacted the agency which represents Convar for press matters, with a written request. But their agency 8222ars publicandi8220 informed me swiftly: Due to time constraints, we can currently offer you neither information nor anyone on the part of our client to talk to regarding this requested topic. I also approached KrollOntrack, a very interesting competitor of Convar in writing. Ontrack Data Recovery, which also has subsidiaries in Germany, was purchased in 2002 by Kroll Inc 8211 8222one of the nation8217s most powerful private investigative and security firms, which has long-standing involvement with executive protection US government officials including the president. This would require close liaison with the Secret Service.8220 40 At the time of the 9/11 attacks, a certain Jerome Hauer was one of the managing directors at Kroll Inc. He had previously established the crisis center for the mayor of New York City as director of the Office of Emergency Management (OEM), which occupied office space on the 23rd floor of the WTC Building 7. Hauer helped former FBI agent John O8217Neill to get the post of the head of Security Affairs at the WTC, and spent the night of September 11 with O8217Neill in New York before the latter lost his life on September 11 in the WTC. Hauer was most likely involved in the planning of 8222Tripod II8220, the war game exercise at the port of New York City. 41 Therefore, I found it appealing to uncover some more details of this aspect, or, more accurately to find out if Ontrack or KrollOntrack had received an order in 2001 or after to rescue computer hard drives from the WTC. The answer I received from KrollOntrack said: Kroll Ontrack was not at the site of the data recovery 8211 the devices at the Twin Towers have been completely destroyed or vaporized. The firm Kroll was, however, at that time active in the field of computer-forensic investigations, securing devices in the surrounding buildings. In essence, these two inquiries did not help me at all. If anything, a further question arose: why did KrollOntrack send me a response, where it was really obvious that the content did not match the facts After all, I had written in my inquiry that Convar had received orders to restore damaged computer hard drives from the World Trade Center. I sent a new inquiry, attaching a link for Erik Kirschbaum8217s Reuters article and additional cinematic reports on Convar8217s which showed that some of the WTC disks had not been 8222completely destroyed or vaporized8220. I stated to KrollOntrack: 8222Your answer does not seem to match the facts, when it comes to 8218completely destroyed or vaporized8216. Will you still stick to your answer8220 KrollOntrack then replied that their previously given assessment constituted 8222not a statement, but an opinion8220. I do not find this assessment worthless, because it is in line with the knowledge of the general public and can easily be refuted in argumentum in contrario by Convars activities. One film report to which I referred to in my second inquiry to KrollOntrack originated from the German television journal Heute-Journal broadcast on March 11, 2002, on ZDF, and the other from the Dutch TV documentary Zembla, broadcast on September 10, 2006. The ZDF report showed that Convar received the WTC disks from the US Department of Defense and that Convar had managed until March 2002 to recover more than 400 hard drives. It also reported that the private companies that employed Convar had paid between 25,000 and 50,000 per hard drive. In the TV documentary Zembla, Convar essentially maintained its position as it had been reported by Erik Kirschbaum in 2001. Obviously, in connection with 9/11 there has not only been insider trading via put options, but there is additional evidence that there have been illegal financial transactions via credit cards through which more than 100 million US dollars were removed from the WTC computer systems. Those occurred shortly before and during the WTC disaster. It remains unclear what the FBI did later on with the data recovered by Convar. On the other hand, it may have been not very much, as can be seen from a memorandum from the 9/11 Commission, which was released in May 2009. The 9/11 Commission asked the FBI about the use of credit cards for insider dealing. On the basis of the information provided by the FBI, the commission came to the conclusion that no such activity occurred because 8222the assembled agents expressed no knowledge of the reported hard-drive recovery effort or the alleged scheme8220 8211 but above all 8222everything at the WTC was pulverized to near powder, making it extremely unlikely that any hard-drives survived8220. 42 The activities of Convar, however, prove the exact opposite. But it gets even better. According to Zembla, the FBI was directly involved with the data rescue efforts of Convar. And on top of it, the broadcast of Heute-Journal reported that Convar worked in that 8222highly sensitive8220 matter with several federal agencies of the United States government. So there have been ample indications for insider trading based on foreknowledge of the attacks, but there are very few hard facts as Catherine Austin Fitts, a former managing director and member of the board of the Wall Street investment bank Dillon, Read amp Co, Inc (now part of UBS), pointed out when I talked with her about this topic. Ms Fitts, what are your general thoughts related to the alleged 9/11-insider trading Catherine Austin Fitts: Well, I8217ve never been able to see concrete evidence that the insider trading has been proved. There8217s a lot of anecdotal information from investment bankers and people in the investment community that indicate that there was significant insider trading, particularly in the currency and bond markets, but again it hasn8217t been documented. I think around situations like 9/11 we8217ve seen things that can only be explained as insider trading. Therefore, it wouldn8217t surprise me if it turns out the allegations are true, because my suspicion is that 9/11 was an extremely profitable covert operation and a lot of the profits came from the trading. It wouldn8217t even surprise me if it turns out that the Exchange Stabilization Fund traded it and that some of the funding for the compensation fund for the victims came from the ESF. Insider trading happens around these kinds of events, but if you really want to produce evidence of insider trading, you need the subpoena powers of the SEC, and of course we know that they haven8217t exercised them. If anything, right after 9/11, the government settled a significant amount of cases I presume because a lot of the documents were destroyed by the destruction of WTC building number 7, where the SEC offices and other governmental investigation offices were. 43 Fitts, who had written a longer essay in 2004 related to this, replied to my question about who had benefited from 9/11: Catherine Austin Fitts: 9/11 was extraordinarily profitable for Wall Street, they of course got a kind of 8222Get Out of Jail Free card8220 as I8217ve just described. In addition, the largest broker of government bonds, Cantor Fitzgerald, was destroyed, and there was a great deal of money missing from the federal government in the prior four or five years. If you look at the amount of funds involved, it is hard to come to a conclusion other than massive securities fraud was involved, so I find it very interesting that this happened. 44 A short explanation: Cantor Fitzgerald8217s headquarters were located in the North Tower of the WTC (floors 101-105). On 9/11, the company lost nearly two-thirds of its entire workforce, more than any other tenant in the WTC. (Also two other government bonds brokers, Garbon Inter Capital and Eurobrokers, occupied office space in the WTC towers that were destroyed.) Back to Fitts and the question: 8222Cui bono 9/118220 Catherine Austin Fitts: In addition, the federal government took the position that they couldn8217t produce audited financial statements after 9/11, because they said the office at the Pentagon that produced financial statements was destroyed. Now given what I know of the federal set up of financial statements, I am skeptical of that statement. But needless to say, if you take the government on its word, you had another 8222Get Out of Jail Free card8220 for four trillion dollars and more missing from the federal government. So if you8217re just looking at the financial fraud angle, there were a lot of parties that benefited from 9/11. But then of course what 9/11 did, it staged the passage of the Patriot Act and a whole series of laws and regulations that I collectively refer to as 8222The Control on Concentration of Cash Flow Act.8220 It gave incredible powers to centralize. In addition, if you look at monetary policies right after 9/11 8211 I remember I was over in the City of London driving around with a money manager and his phone rang and he answered it on his speaker phone. It was somebody on Wall Street who he hadn8217t talked to since before 9/11, and he said to him: 8222Oh Harry, I am so sorry about what has happened, it must have been very traumatic.8220 And the guy said: 8222Don8217t be ridiculous We were able to borrow cheap short and invest long, we8217re running a huge arbitrage, we8217re making a fortune, this is the most profitable thing that ever happened to us8220 8211 So you could tell the monetary policies and sort of insider games were just pumping profits into the bank at that time, so that was very profitable. But of course the big money was used for a significant movement of the military abroad and into Afghanistan and then into Iraq 8230 You could see that the country was being prepared to go to war. And sure enough, 9/11 was used as a justification to go to war in Afghanistan, to go to war in Iraq, and commit a huge number of actions, and now much of the challenges about the budget are the result of extraordinary expenditures on war including in Afghanistan and Iraq and the costs of moving the army abroad and engaging in this kind of empire building with ground military force. So I think if you ask Cui Bono on 9/11, one of the big categories was all the people who made money on engineering the popular fear they needed to engineer these wars. I believe whether it was financial fraud, engineering new laws or engineering wars, it was a fantastically profitable covert operation. 45 In that category of people who benefit from 9/11 are also the arms manufacturer Raytheon, whose share price gained directly from the 9/11 attacks. Trading of the shares of Raytheon, the producer of Tomahawk and Patriot missiles (and parent company of E-systems, whose clients include the National Security Agency and CIA), experienced an abrupt six-time increase of call option purchases on the day immediately before September 11. 46 The outright purchase of call options implies the expectation that a stock price will rise. In the first week after 9/11, when the New York Stock Exchange opened again, the value of Raytheon actually shot up considerably. Looking at the development of the stock price, the impression is a very weak performance before the attacks 8211 and then, after resumption of trade, a 8222gap8220 (at substantial volume) upwards. In other words: just under 25 on September 10, the low in the period between August 20 to September 28, at 31, 50 on September 17 and up to 34,80 on September 27, 2001. With regards to government bonds, buyers of US Treasury securities with a maturity of five years were also winners. These securities were traded in an unusually large volume shortly before the attacks. The Wall Street Journal reported at least in early October 2001 that the Secret Service had started an investigation into a suspiciously high volume of US government bond purchases before the attacks. The Wall Street Journal explained: Five-year Treasury bills are the best investments in the event of a global crisis, in particular one like this which has hit the United States. The papers are treasured because of their safety, and because they are covered by the US government, and usually their prices rise if investors shun riskier investments, such as shares. 47 Adding to this phenomenon, the government issues these bonds that serve as a basis of money creation for funding a war such as the immediately declared 8222war on terror8220, engaging the Tomahawks from Raytheon. And here it may again be useful to have a quick look at the 8222cui bono8220 relationship: The US Federal Reserve creates money to fund the war and lends it to the American government. The American government in turn must pay interest on the money they borrow from the Central Bank to fund the war. The greater the war appropriations, the greater the profits are for bankers. 48 A multi-layered combination, one could say. I also talked about the topic of 9/11 insider trading with one of the world8217s leading practitioners at the interface between the international capital markets, the national security policy of the US as well as geopolitics, James G Rickards. He gave me some answers in a personal discussion, which I am allowed to repeat here with his expressed approval. Question: Did suspicious trading activities of uncovered put options on futures markets occur shortly before 9/11 James G Rickards: Well, the trading documents certainly look suspicious. It is simply a fact that an unusually high volume of purchases of put-options for the two airlines occurred over the three trading days before the attacks. This is a mere fact, no speculation, no guessing around. This is clearly obvious from the documents of the trading sessions on the derivatives exchanges. Question: Do you think that the intelligence agencies could have got a warning signal based on this information James G Rickards: Theoretically that is possible, if are you are looking and watching out for this. But there was far more significant information, which was ignored. Question: Do you also think that some people with foreknowledge operated speculatively in the option markets James G Rickards: Based on the documentation of the trading session it seems that this has been the case, yes. Let8217s sum up a bit at the end. We have, among other things: The 8222nice detective work8220 by Kevin Ryan related to Stratesec/Wirt Walker III. Some highly inconsistent information vis-a-vis Convar/illegal credit card transactions. Scientific papers supporting the allegations that there were indeed unusual trading activities in the option market before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, although the 9/11 Commission (based on the investigation of the SEC and the FBI) ruled that possibility out. As it became clear that I would publish this article here at Asia Times Online, I contacted the US Federal Bureau of Investigation via its press spokesman Paul Bresson in order 8222to give the FBI the opportunity to give a public statement with regards to three specific issues8220. Those three specific issues were the ones I have just highlighted. Related to each of them I8217ve asked Mr Bresson/the FBI: 8222Could you comment on this for the public, please8220 Up to this moment, Mr Bresson/the FBI did not respond to my inquiry in any way whatsoever. Does this come as a surprise I8217ve also got back in touch with 8222ars publicandi8220, the firm that does public relations for Convar in Germany. The response said: 8222Unfortunately I have to inform you that the status has not changed, and that Convar considers the issue of 9/11 as dead in general.8220 As you have read, the status in August of last year was slightly different. At the end of this article, I should perhaps mention that this research ultimately led to negative consequences for me. After I contacted the FBI, I was informed by the publisher of a German financial website, for which I conducted interviews for a professional fee (and had already prepared more work), that no further cooperation was possible. Now that I will come in one way or another into the focus of the FBI, any association with me would be undesirable. Well, you know the rules. As far as the abnormal option trades around 9/11 are concerned, I want to give Max Keiser the last word in order to point out the significance of the story. Max Keiser: Regardless of who did it, we can know that more than a few had advance warning 8211 the trading in the option market makes that clear. 1 Compare Michael C. Ruppert: Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age Of Oil, New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, 2004, page 152. 2 Ibid. page 153. 3 Ibid. page 154 155. 4 Ibid. page 170. 5 Ibid. page 238 253: 9/11 Insider Trading, or You Didnt Really See That, Even Though We Saw It. 6 Ibid. page 239. 7 Compare Chris Blackhurst: Mystery of terror insider dealers, published at The Independent on October 4, 2001 under: 8 Compare Profits of Death, published at From the Wilderness on December 6, 2001 under: 9 For the fact, that it was George Tenet who recruited Krongard, compare George Tenet: At the Center of the Storm, Harper Collins, New York, 2007, page 19. 10 Compare Marc Chesney, Remo Crameri and Loriano Mancini: Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Option Markets, University of Zurich, April 2010, online at: 11 Nafeez M. Ahmed: Geheimsache 09/11. Hintergrnde ber den 11. September und die Logik amerikanischer Machtpolitik, Goldmann Verlag, Munich, 2004, page 182. (Translated back into English from German.) 12 Compare Michael C. Ruppert: Crossing the Rubicon, page 244 247. 13 Wing-Keung Wong, Howard E. Thompson und Kweehong Teh: Was there Abnormal Trading in the SampP 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks, published at Social Sciences Research Network, April 2010, under: 14 Compare Bank of America among 38 stocks in SECs attack probe, published at Bloomberg News on October 3, 2001, archived under: 15 Michael C. Ruppert: Crossing the Rubicon, page 243. 17 Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA8217s Highest Ranks, published at From the Wilderness on October 9, 2001 under: 18 Compare Early September 2001: Almost Irrefutable Proof of Insider Trading in Germany, published at History Commons under: 19 Allen M. Poteshman: Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, published in The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, 2006, Vol. 79, Edition 4, page 1703-1726. 20 Wing-Keung Wong, Howard E. Thompson und Kweehong Teh: Was there Abnormal Trading in the SampP 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks, see endnote 13. 21 Ibid. The authors refer to Erin E. Arvedlund: Follow the money: terrorist conspirators could have profited more from fall of entire market than single stocks, published in Barrons on October 8, 2001. 22 Wong, Thompson, Teh: Was there Abnormal Trading in the SampP 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks 25 Marina Alcaraz: 11 septembre 2001: des volumes inhabituels sur les options peu avant lattentat, published in Les Echos, page 34, September 10, 2001, online at: 26 Marc Chesney, Remo Crameri and Loriano Mancini: Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Option Markets, see endnote 10. 30 Compare Marc Chesney, Remo Crameri and Loriano Mancini: Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Option Markets, published at the University of Zurich on September 7, 2011 under: www. bf. uzh. ch/publikationen/pdf/2098.pdf 31 Vgl. Lars Schall: Sapere Aude, German Interview with Dr. Daniele Ganser, published at LarsSchall on August 18, 2011 under: 32 Compare a copy of the letter by the SEC on MaxKeiser under: 33 Compare related to this agreement Matt Taibbi: Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes, published at Rolling Stone on August 17, 2011 under: 34 Mark H. Gaffney: Black 9/11: A Walk on the Dark Side, published at Foreign Policy Journal on March 2, 2011 under: 35 Compare Peter Dale Scott: Launching the U. S. Terror War: the CIA, 9/11, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 12, No 3, March 19, 2012, online at: japanfocus. org/-PeterDale-Scott/3723 35 Erik Kirschbaum: German Firm Probes Last-Minute World Trade Center Transactions, published at Reuters on December 19, 2001, online at: 38 Michael C. Ruppert: Crossing the Rubicon, page 244. 39 Ibid. page 423. 40 Ibid. page 423 426. 41 Commission Memorandum: FBI Briefing on Trading, dated August 18, 2003, page 12, online at: media. nara. gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf 42 Lars Schall: 9/11 Was A Fantastically Profitable Covert Operation, Interview with Catherine Austin Fitts, published at LarsSchall on September 3, 2011 under: 43 Ibid. Compare further related to the cui bono topic Catherine Austin Fitts: 9-11 Profiteering: A Framework for Building the Cui Bono, published at GlobalResearch on March 22, 2004 under: www. globalresearch. ca/articles/FIT403A 44 Lars Schall: 9/11 Was A Fantastically Profitable Covert Operation, see endnote 42. 45 Compare Bank of America among 38 stocks in SECs attack probe, see endnote 14. A Raytheon option that makes money if shares are more than 25 each had 232 options contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times the total number of trades that had occurred before that day. A contract represents options on 100 shares. Raytheon shares soared almost 37 percent to 34.04 during the first week of post-attack U. S. trading. 46 Compare Barry Grey: Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors of September 11 attacks, published at World Socialist Web Site on October 5, 2001 under: 47 J. S. Kim: Inside the Illusory Empire of the Banking Commodity Con Game, published at The Underground Investor on October 19, 2010 under: Related posts: Re: Deutsche Bank Alex Brown and 9/11 Insider Trading I had the feeling that there was one final thing left for me to do regarding my research of informed trading activities. 9-11 Insider Trading and Germany8217s Elusive Gold Reserves Keiser Report: Selective Amnesia for Brokers amp Murderers. In the second half of the show Max talks to independent journalist, Lars Schall. Terror Trading 9/11 8222Terror Trading 9/11 by Lars Schall and Michael Leitner is a video dedicated to the topic of the alleged informed trading activities. Posted in Allgemein
No comments:
Post a Comment