Fortunes made on bombing

[sabra]

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http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,15885610%255E462,00.html

Fortunes made on bombing
By Louise Armitstead and Richard Fletcher
11jul05
THOUSANDS of investors joined sharp institutions in making millions of pounds from the short-lived collapse in share prices that followed the terrorist strikes in London last week.

It was the busiest day of trading for over two years. The London Stock Exchange said 4.75 billion shares were traded on Thursday compared with the recent daily average of about 3.1 billion.

BP and Vodafone were among Britain's largest companies that took advantage of the volatile markets to improve their balance sheets.


Financial spread-betting firm City Index said more than 8000 retail investors had dived into the market on Thursday, correctly backing their hunch that share prices would quickly bounce back.

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[Caution]

1. Looks like Fox viewers jumped on Brit Hume's humanitarian advice

assholes.

[lovuian]

6. or did Brit Hume get a call Heads up here like Matt Cooper

Nows the time to buy what a prophetic statement or insider news!!!

[formercia]

2. Parasites

somebody hand me the Raid.

[Zorra]

3. Man, there are an awful lot of really sick fuckheads in this world. n/t

[baby_bear]

4. This wasn't like the "puts" before 9/11 though, was it?

I know nothing of the stock market, but one unresolved (for me) issue regarding 9/11 was the "puts" issue on the affected airlines, i.e., some individuals apparently knew in advance what was coming and were able to make stock market investments to ensure they would make a bundle.

Is there something similar here, or was this just a case of cynics such as Brit Hume taking advantage of a tragedy?

b_b

[Tiberius]

7. This is completely different

Whoever placed large bets before 9/11 had to have prior knowledge of the attack- the volume of options traded was too large, and the bets were placed on the specific airlines involved.

In this case, institutions wagered correctly that initial drops in share prices would reverse. There is nothing, however, to guarantee that this would pan out the way it did.

That's capitalism, folks. I wouldn't read that much morality into it.

[Daphne08]

5. Those who made money on the tragedy should be required

to go to the morgues and hospitals to view the victims!

I can say no more about this story.

[DiverDave]

8. BLOOD MONEY

Not that they are losing any sleep over it, or anything:puke:

[sabra]

9. indeed, it's very sad...

[Danmel]

10. That is just sick

What kind of person when seeing death and pain and misery of innocent people thinks about how to make a buck? Oh, that's right...a Republican. Nauseating, aren't they?

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. An ethically grey area

If you see that other people have panicked, and are selling their stocks cheaply, when you think that the underlying value hasn't changed, is it bad to agree to buy those stocks at the cheaper price? If no-one buys them at the lower price, then the price will continue to fall. Someone has to start buying at some level.

After all, the general message has been "this won't hurt us, we'll carry on our lives as before".

I do think it was tasteless for Brit Hume to say this was his first thought; he is, as far as I know, a general news presenter, not a financial specialist.