32 MISINFORMATION SCHEMES Used By Wall Street, Corporate America, & The Media

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/32-misinformation-schemes-used-wall-street-corporate-america-media





32 Misinformation Schemes Used By Wall Street, Corporate America, & The Media




[size=10]by Tyler Durden
Wed, 01/15/2020 - 08:24Print[/size]




Authored by Wolf Richter via WolfStreet.com,
This is a collection of 32 tactics, instances, misnomers, immortal fake propaganda, and even wrong-doing cropping up ceaselessly on Wall Street, in the media, in press releases, in earnings reports, and in the broader nexus between Wall Street and the media.

All of them were pointed out by WOLF STREET commenters. I put them together and grouped some of them, and added some explanations in a few cases even when not needed. In no particular order:

Quote :

#1: “The moronic statements regarding ‘money on the sidelines.’”
“That ‘money on the sidelines’ thing drives me nuts. I sit around wondering how captured financial commentators must be to even entertain such concepts on such a regular basis.”
“Money on the sidelines is immortal. It has been cited all my investing life, and it will still be cited long after I’m gone, to be passed proudly from generation to generation, no matter how often it gets debunked.”
“I found a coin on the sidewalk once. It must be the infamous sidelines money. Just a million coins more, and I will have enough to go on vacation.”
#2: “The claptrap surrounding earnings beats – after earnings targets have been quietly but drastically reduced.”
#3: “Forward earnings projections” to rationalize high stock prices. Everyone is doing it, even the Fed. Forward earnings projections are part of the great body of American fiction and get slashed as earnings-report dates get nearer so that the much-lowered projections can then be “beat” (see #2 above). This produces the absurd situation where forward P/E ratios are always far lower (currently 18.4 according to FactSet) than the actual P/E ratios (currently 24.6, highest since the Financial Crisis).
#4: “The revolving door between government and Wall Street – ‘the swamp.’”  Drain it already.
#5: “The revolting door between government and Wall Street” – that would be one of Wolf’s infamous typos.
#6: “Exclusion of negative earnings from P/E calculations of broad indices.” The Russell 2000 does this. There are a large number of loss-making companies in the index. Excluding their negative earnings distorts earnings measures of the Russell 2000, such as the P/E ratio of the index. With losses included, the P/E ratio of the Russell 2000 would be about four times higher than the officially quoted P/E ratio without losses. It’s not a secret: FTSE Russell and iShares disclose that losses are excluded; but it’s the fake P/E ratio without losses that is being quoted all the time to rationalize high stock prices.
#7. “Bogus ‘Chinese Walls’ and other internal conflicts of interest.”
#8. “Arms-length Agreements” to describe veiled self-dealing.” Also see #7 above.
#9. “Mark-to-Fantasy accounting standards.” A common situation when an asset is valued on the balance sheet based on whatever (including wishful thinking) instead of market price because the market price would be too inconvenient.
#10. “‘Non-GAAP’ accounting metrics.” This might be fake income with all the bad stuff removed, producing a “non-GAAP” profit vs. a GAAP loss, a common feature in earnings reports by Corporate America. Or it might be homemade metrics that everyone has to pay attention to, while ignoring the GAAP accounting metrics.
In the same non-GAAP vein: “Use of EBITDA and subtracting all ‘nonrecurring items’” – which turn out to recur regularly.
#11: “GAAP accounting metrics…” ha, we knew that.
#12: “Debt-financed share buybacks” – a form of equity stripping.
#13: “Positive coverage of ‘share buy backs,’ ostensibly to enrich share ‘owners,’ but really to enrich share sellers and to recycle management stock options through the corporate treasury?”
In the same vein: “Mopping up overgenerous stock options by looting the treasury with share buybacks, described as “Returning Shareholder Value,” while never paying a dividend.”
#14: “Leveraged buyouts with asset-stripping.” This was a favorite in brick-and-mortar retail some years ago, leading to a massive pileup of bankruptcies by major retailers, such as Toys “R” Us.
#15: “Banging the Close.” This can occur in all markets, including cryptos. Here is a definition for the futures market, where it is illegal: “A manipulative or disruptive trading practice whereby a trader buys or sells a large number of futures contracts during the closing period of a futures contract (that is, the period during which the futures settlement price is determined) in order to benefit an even larger position in an option, swap, or other derivative that is cash settled based on the futures settlement price on that day.”
#16: “Citizens’ United”: The US Supreme Court case on campaign finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, as explained by SCOTUSblog: “Political spending is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the government may not keep corporations or unions from spending money to support or denounce individual candidates in elections. While corporations or unions may not give money directly to campaigns, they may seek to persuade the voting public through other means, including ads, especially where these ads were not broadcast.”
#17: “Gimmicks to mask stock-compensation expenses.” Also see #13 above.
#18: “Cost-of-Business fines to punish corporate wrongdoing, rather than punitive damages plus jail time for responsible individuals.” This includes fining a company like Facebook what looks like a large amount for serious wrong-doing, but that represents only a fraction of its quarterly profit and just becomes part of the cost of doing business.
#19: “Perfectly Legal tax-avoidance schemes.”
#20: “Quarter-End Window Dressing.”
#21: “Pump-and-Dump” – which is a feature, not a bug in some of the reporting.
#22: “Front-Running and stop-loss harvesting from peeking at orders.”
#23: “Narrative Fraud (hyping fake news).”
#24: “The media conveniently forget to disclose the financial interests of guest speakers in their financial columns and misinformation shows. I wouldn’t put it past the MIC ‘swamp’ to purposely misinform the POTUS, as well. Rid us of the swamp already!”
#25: “Goodwill.” But wait… this is GAAP accounting. See #11 above.
#26: “High-frequency trading which evaporates whenever the market needs genuine liquidity.”
#27: “Wagging the Dog – manipulating markets via fake or incorrect headlines to trigger reactions from speed-reading algorithms.”
#28: “Wagging the Dog 2 – manipulating primary securities prices in liquid markets via small-scale trades in illiquid derivatives markets.”
#29: “Opinion presented as fact, especially on the front page rather than editorial pages.”
#30: “Machine-generated formulaic articles which aren’t labeled as such.” But wait… they’re so cheap and nearly instant to generate, and machines (trading algos) love reading machine-generated articles! No humans needed.
#31: “The mindset in which ‘If 2 sources say the same thing it must be published as if true,’ especially when the 2 sources are colluding behind-the-scenes.
#32: “The savings glut.” Yeah, that’ll be the day.

My patience has been exhausted.

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/mainstream-media-warns-journalists-against-printing-the-truth-in-aftermath-of-burisma-hack_01152020



MAINSTREAM MEDIA WARNS JOURNALISTS AGAINST PRINTING THE TRUTH IN AFTERMATH OF BURISMA HACK
Mac Slavo
January 15th, 2020
SHTFplan.com



The mainstream media desperately wants the truth about Joe Biden’s Burism corruption swept under the rug.  They are warning journalists to not even look at the information available after a “hack”, let alone print the truth for people.
If someone DOES manage to print the truth and big tech doesn’t censor it, the mainstream media says that person is handing over the 2020 election to Russia.  Where have we heard this before?

Quote :

Burisma Holdings – the Ukrainian company where Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden’s son Hunter served as a director – has been hacked, cybersecurity firm Area 1 announced on Tuesday. Area 1 has ties to both the NSA and Crowdstrike, the firm behind 2016’s still-unproven “Russian hacking” allegations, and has fingered “Fancy Bear” – the ‘hacking group’ at the center of those allegations – as the culprit. –RT

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Even though no files have been released from the “hack,” the thought police are out in full force trying to attempt the truth from being printed. The American political and media thought leaders have been issuing dire warnings to any journalists thinking of publishing or even reading them if they ever are released. To do so would be giving aid and comfort to the enemy – one step above treason – and nothing less than a capital thoughtcrime, these individuals have suggested.

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Quote :

Noah Shachtman

:heavy_check_mark:@NoahShachtman





[ltr]I hope my fellow editors will think hard — really hard, a lot harder than they did in 2016 — before publishing any material hacked by the Russians. https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1216872167641636864 …[/ltr]

NYT Politics

:heavy_check_mark:@nytpolitics

Russians hacked the Ukrainian company at the center of President Trump’s impeachment. Experts suspect they may be seeking information on the Bidens https://nyti.ms/2QO1fUG 



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Quote :

Noah Shachtman

:heavy_check_mark:@NoahShachtman

 · Jan 13, 2020



[ltr]I hope my fellow editors will think hard — really hard, a lot harder than they did in 2016 — before publishing any material hacked by the Russians. https://twitter.com/nytpolitics/status/1216872167641636864 …[/ltr]

NYT Politics

:heavy_check_mark:@nytpolitics

Russians hacked the Ukrainian company at the center of President Trump’s impeachment. Experts suspect they may be seeking information on the Bidens https://nyti.ms/2QO1fUG 

Quote :

Maria Romanetti@WriterRomana


[ltr]Translation: any material hurtful to Democrats.[/ltr]


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10:17 PM - Jan 13, 2020
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See Maria Romanetti's other Tweets




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Noah Shachtman, the Daily Beast’s editor was one of those who warned against publishing data that was “hacked by the Russians.” Since there was no confirmation of any data being copied, planted, or removed in that “hack,” editors might just want to be safe and ignore any negative information that might emerge relating to Biden or his corrupt son. The truth will remain hidden, and mainstream media has actually admitted to not wanting people to know the truth.  As the government’s lapdog, we expected nothing less.
And leave it to Hillary Clinton to make sure that “Russian election meddling” narrative sticks!

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Quote :

Hillary Clinton

:heavy_check_mark:@HillaryClinton





[ltr]Russians appear to be re-running their 2016 hacking playbook, once again to benefit Donald Trump.

Will the media play along again?

Will the GOP open the door again?

Will the Russians help pick our POTUS again? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/us/politics/russian-hackers-burisma-ukraine.html …[/ltr]

Russians Hacked Ukrainian Gas Company at Center of Impeachment

The timing and scale of the attacks suggest the Russians may be looking for the same kind of damaging information on Joe Biden that President Trump wanted from Ukraine, security experts say.
nytimes.com



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Some are warning that from the hack, will come “disinformation,” which is media speak for “bad things will be revealed about Joe Biden.”

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Quote :

Benny

:heavy_check_mark:@bennyjohnson





[ltr]MSNBC warning that the Burisma Emails that we’re allegedly hacked by Russia might be Disinformation.

Too bad the entire mainstream media, MSNBC included, fell for the Russian Disinformation in the Steele Dossier and acted as if it was accurate.[/ltr]







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“We are just not clear on what’s real and what’s not anymore,” an ‘expert’ lamented, sounding vaguely panicked, according to RT. The establishment media and the ruling class have decided that people don’t need information.  They need to be brainwashed.
News of the “hack” follows closely on the heels of anonymous U.S. officials’ claim that “Russian disinformation operations” are targeting Biden – once the surefire Democratic frontrunner, but lately second to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and even Pete Buttigieg, depending on the poll.
The Biden campaign has already been spinning their own narrative as news of the “hack” broke.  Biden’s campaign is blaming Trump and using the “hack” as proof their candidate was still a force to be reckoned with, making sure to get in a dig at the President, campaign spokesman Andrew Bates’ comment to the New York Times was laughable at best.  “Any American president who had not repeatedly encouraged foreign interventions of this kind would immediately condemn this attack on the sovereignty of our elections,” he said, surprising anyone who didn’t realize “the sovereignty of our elections” extends deep into Ukraine.
So if the mainstream media is to be believed, Russians hacked a Ukrainian company on which Joe Biden’s son served as a director, and reporting on the information found is somehow handing the election over to the Russians, so censorship by the media is mandatory. The political establishment and mainstream media are flailing right now.  No on in their right mind is buying this snake oil.[/size]