9-11 Insider Trading

[zengrifter]

Business as usual -- 9/11 and the fall of America

By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor
May 26, 2006

Under the guise of business as usual, consider the huge improprieties in the securities markets that went unnoticed before and immediately after 9/11/2001, contributing to the attacks’ awful success and America’s subsequent decline.

I’m talking about the insider trading behind the “put and call options” scandals that allowed certain individuals to pull in huge profits. Stated as simply as possible, put options were used on stocks that would be hurt by the attack, and call options were used on stocks that would benefit. In the put case you’re betting on a fall in the price of stocks; in the call case, you’re betting on a rise in the price of a stock.

Put options were made on the struck airlines, insurance companies and banks pre-and-through-9/11, as if someone had foreknowledge something bad was going to happen to bring down the price of the stocks. A 9-11 Research report on Insider Trading headlines the tale: “Pre-9/11 Put Options on Companies Hurt by Attack Indicates Foreknowledge.”

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