But wouldn't the sale be known to anybody on the stock exchange?
I thought a tip would be something like... the Air Force is going to buy a bunch of Boeing jets.
On the trading floor they don't know who is necessarily selling. They'd know which brokerage house is selling but all of the trades for the entire brokerage are rolled up together so the brokerage is the only one that knows who is selling or buying the individual shares.
It's one thing to know that a contract for AF Jets is about to be awarded. It's another to know that your specific client runs a company that may or may not get that contract and is selling all of their shares of stock in their own company the day before the contract award. The broker would be position to be aware of that kind of info which is why the whole case rests on the tie-in between Martha, Waskel and the broker.
I still think that on the Stock Market floor, there'd be a pretty good idea, if one house, say Merrill-Lynch, sold a huge bunch of shares and everybody knew that so many shares could only come from one source.
Anyway, she said she talked to her broker, but now the government says it is a lie, that she talked to his assistant.
Who said she was going to plead guilty? Where did that come from?
There are a total of 20 million shares of ImClone stock and daily trading volume averages about 400,000 shares. On Dec 27th, 2001 (the day Martha sold her shares) approx. 7.5 million shares of ImClone changed hands (according to bigcharts.com). Hiding 4,000 shares in that would be pretty easy to do.
I'm not sure where the story about her wanting to plead guilty came from. I haven't seen it in print anywhere.
Wow. More than seven million additional shares were traded that day than might be expected? That must have caused a stir.
edit: I suppose everyone is also aware that Martha's shares weren't sold until after 1:30pm on that day.
Would someone explain again why Martha's explanations of why she was selling off her last few shares in IMCLONE late in the day and after an extraordinary number of other shares had also been sold, all at a loss, would constitute fraud in her own company?
Because if she lied to commit fraud for her company, then one would think Martha Stewart Omnimedia would go up in value. As Max kindly points out, it went down.
fishin', Thanks for confirming my June 6 post on the 7 million shares traded on the same day as Martha's 4000 shares. It seems many people miss this important point. c.i.
Do they actually have trading floors still? I thought it was all done on computer these days....I know that the exchange in 'Trading Places' is a thing of the past (still a classic flick though).
I know so little about Martha. The TV movie promos, made her look like a mean bitch. However, the circumstances I've been reading about, in the papers, and in this thread, have made become an unofficial cheerleader for her. (I'm a sucker for a damsel, or bitch in distress.
)
my 80 yr old mother with alzheimers calls Martha "Bitch goddess from hell" but also thinks she is getting the shaft.
Martha seems to have the same type of relationship with the public as Bill Gates does. People either love 'em or hate 'em.
I never watched her shows just because the pace of her speaking drives me batty but hell.. she makes cookies and wreaths fer chrisesakes.. I don't get the hatred.
And....She's pretty hot for a sixty year old.
(bad Boo
)
lol Ok. I'll take yer word for it!
She's so sweet on t.v., but a "bitch" to work for/with. c.i.
When you work for a bitch, you just have to let her know who's boss.
........
............................(her) :wink:
BTW, C.I.....You speaking from experience? Spill it, podnuh!
I'm a bast'a whetha I'm at work or at home. Good news for my work associates: I retired. My wife is stuck with me.
c.i.
