Sometimes the playing field is so unlevel that it makes no sense to play. That's how I felt about these leaks.
Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) (Cramer's Take) went from being "Mr. Clean" on Wednesday to "Mr. Dirty" on Thursday. The company went from having bountiful equity that drove the stock up a point, to needing bountiful equity, which it filed for Thursday night. No apologies from anyone, not the leakers or the leakees. I never heard or read the phrase "it was incorrectly reported" even though that was totally the case.
Same with State Street (NYSE: STT) (Cramer's Take). Here's one that went from needing capital, to not needing capital, to needing capital, and then to having too much capital so it can start paying back the TARP funds all in one 24-hour news cycle.
Again, no apologies from the government that leaked it or the media who took the leak and ran with it unsubstantiated.
The whole process was awful. It tainted what was actually a pretty good series of tests and some rigorous analysis on the part of the government.
What should have happened? Of course, there should have been no leaks. And there should have been no trading. Everyone who traded in these was completely ripped off.
Now this is not a case like Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) (Cramer's Take) in which it was going to go up no matter what because everyone simply decided the bottom was in. How ironic, by the way, was it that the first serious worry about housing's potential bottom came Thursday, with higher rates, just when the bank most levered to housing was blessed by all?
This is just purely a case that smacked more of insider trading than anything else.
If I were at the Securities and Exchange Commission, I would ask, today, what happened here?
Enough leaks. Enforce the law, SEC, and let's put an end to them.
Jim Cramer is co-founder and chairman of TheStreet.com. He contributes daily market commentary for TheStreet.com's sites and serves as an adviser to the company's CEO. At the time of publication, Cramer was long State Street.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-08-2009 @ 11:11AM
rick said...
Sorry Jim, you're not any sort of poster child for ethics in the stock market.
Remember - "it's all a game?"
This reads more like you're just miffed that they didn't leak to you.
5-08-2009 @ 1:49PM
ij70 said...
Mr. Cramer, it is very easy to stop leaks, you take FBI, add Homeland Security, add NSA and then call the whole thing KGB. No leaks!
5-09-2009 @ 8:11PM
The Citizen said...
Hey Jim,
The dollar is leaking and China will soon bail on us.