If you are such an authority(Ha Ha) how come you didn't 'blow the gaff?'.
I'm with Dolf on this. Sell a Cezanne or two and his biggest clients won't be all that broke. It's the not-so-rich folks at the bottom of the pyramid who will suffer the most.
Thank goodness for google that I can figure out what that phrase meant. Now, did I ever say that I was an authority? All that I know is what I read, and very little of it adds up. I had only heard bits and pieces about him prior to this whole mess, and had no reason to look into him- I don't have millions to invest (sort of the minimum in order to even have him look at you as a client.) I look at financial statements as well as management, P/E ratios, dividends and the likes before investing in any stock and if I ever bought a mutual fund or hedge fund you can bet I would understand what they hold and their purpose before putting a dollar in them. If I can do that then sure as hell a multi millionaire can do the same. I also might not have put my whole worth into one fund.
It has been said over and over that everybody who tried to use the method that he claimed to use made far less than him. He would return 12% year after year and if you traded exactly what he did you would be lucky to skip out with any positive result at all. Ask yourself how many hedge funds return 12% each year in good or bad markets. That is a large reason that people pretty much knew there was more to it than just a few legal trades. He was a market maker and they all expected him to use that position to make them money.
As to blowing the gaff... Did it do any good when people actually did? Lets look at the past. Madoff Whistleblower Slams SEC - ABC News Just a little bit of history on the man who looked into Madoff for 9 YEARS and blew the whistle. From that article "Markopolos claimed to have come to the conclusion that Madoff was a fraud in "about five minutes" by looking at his promotional material and seeing that the graphs representing Madoff's investment returns were a straight line going up at a 45-degree angle. He alleged he brought 29 different red flags to the SEC, but was ignored because, he said, the agency didn't know what it was seeing." Seems like letting the SEC in on a little secret really didn't help matters.
As to the charities; I feel sorry for them. I work for a fairly large charity and I can tell you that a hedge fund is not where any responsible charity would park their donors money. Hedge funds are, by design, risky. It is too bad they lost millions- but you have to ask yourself what kind of charity invests in hedge funds- are they speculating in the futures markets as well- perhaps buying options? Charities should be responsible and good- but I would venture that some are also greedy and not the best stewards of their donors funds.
Again, I would like to point out how little good it did to have somebody who had investigated him and was a trader doing the same job screaming that it was not right and even suggesting that it was a poizi scheme. If you want to read a good timeline it is here. Madoff Misled SEC in '06, Got Off - WSJ.com
It has been said over and over that everybody who tried to use the method that he claimed to use made far less than him. He would return 12% year after year and if you traded exactly what he did you would be lucky to skip out with any positive result at all. Ask yourself how many hedge funds return 12% each year in good or bad markets. That is a large reason that people pretty much knew there was more to it than just a few legal trades. He was a market maker and they all expected him to use that position to make them money.
As to blowing the gaff... Did it do any good when people actually did? Lets look at the past. Madoff Whistleblower Slams SEC - ABC News Just a little bit of history on the man who looked into Madoff for 9 YEARS and blew the whistle. From that article "Markopolos claimed to have come to the conclusion that Madoff was a fraud in "about five minutes" by looking at his promotional material and seeing that the graphs representing Madoff's investment returns were a straight line going up at a 45-degree angle. He alleged he brought 29 different red flags to the SEC, but was ignored because, he said, the agency didn't know what it was seeing." Seems like letting the SEC in on a little secret really didn't help matters.
As to the charities; I feel sorry for them. I work for a fairly large charity and I can tell you that a hedge fund is not where any responsible charity would park their donors money. Hedge funds are, by design, risky. It is too bad they lost millions- but you have to ask yourself what kind of charity invests in hedge funds- are they speculating in the futures markets as well- perhaps buying options? Charities should be responsible and good- but I would venture that some are also greedy and not the best stewards of their donors funds.
Again, I would like to point out how little good it did to have somebody who had investigated him and was a trader doing the same job screaming that it was not right and even suggesting that it was a poizi scheme. If you want to read a good timeline it is here. Madoff Misled SEC in '06, Got Off - WSJ.com