Put Option Trading "Innocuous?"

The mystery of the Put Options is one of the old stories of "missed warnings of 9/11" that first surfaced shortly after the attacks. I'm a bit hazy on all the details, but for those unfamiliar, a "put" option is basically a bet that a company's stock will go down, and only pays off if the company takes a hit. In the days before 9/11, the Chicago exchange board recorded a major spikes in put option purchases for United and American Airlines and for various companies based in the WTC.

Mike Ruppert and others have talked about this a lot, and how such anomalous trading is supposed to tip off inteligence and law agencies that someone is abusing insider knowledge, and in light of air terror threats in 2001, might trigger other alarms as well. Apparnetly they did not raise an eyebrow until after the attacks. Mainstream reports suspected terrorists with foreknowledge placed the orders to profit from the attacks, though as far as I heard, the puts were never cashed in (for understandable reasons).

Thanks to Cameron Fox for posting the 9/11 Commission's explanation for all this, which I had previously missed (bold mine):

Highly publicized allegations of insider trading in advance of 9/11 generally rest on reports of unusual pre-9/11 trading activity in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation. For example, the volume of put options—investments that pay off only when a stock drops in price—surged in the parent companies of United Airlines on September 6 and American Airlines on September 10—highly suspicious trading on its face. Yet, further investigation has revealed that the trading had no connection with 9/11. A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, which recommended these trades. These examples typify the evidence examined by the investigation. The SEC and the FBI, aided by other agencies and the securities industry, devoted enormous resources to investigating this issue, including securing the cooperation of many foreign governments. These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous.

So what they seem to be saying here is because it couldn't be tied to al Qaeda this profitable and apparently psychic "strategy" is not suspicious. I'm presuming now the money was claimed, since it was all inocent, and so some people did somehow benefit financially from 9/11 in a pattern normally called insider trading. But it was just one good guess after another this time, huh?

Now by this same pattern, if we found a purposeful order to have all fighter jets off line for repair on Sept. 7-13, and got no fighter response on 9/11 (as opposed the effective absence we got), this would look suspicious, no? But if al Qaeda was not found responsible, and in fact the President's stamp was on it, would that be innoccuous? Is this the kind of pattern they consistently saw? Granted it's a strained analogy, as one has to do with direct defense, the other just serving as a possible clue to get defenses up.

I'm too lazy at the moment to gather data, and I know others of you have it. What company and one newsletter decided to get all this "seemingly suspicious" activity going on right before 9/11? And why? Were the prizes claimed? Who runs these companies and who do they know?


[edit on 19-5-2007 by Caustic Logic]

[edit on 19-5-2007 by Caustic Logic]

Id like to know this as well.
Who exactly by name made the put options? Is he still alive? can we talk to him and investigate his associations in his business dealings?

This is from USATODAY.com- 09/26/2001- Much attention has been paid to the high level of put options-bets on falling stock price. but some investors also were playing an extremely risky game of "naked call selling" just before Sept. 11.
In naked call selling, an investor pledges to sell stock he or she doesn't own. If the stock price rises, the seller is on the hook not only for the price of the options, but for the stock, too. But if the stock falls in price, the profits can be huge.
"It's not the type of thing you'd normally do, unless you were sure the stock price was going to go down," says Erlanger. "There was nouthing going on to warrant that kind of speculation.

I would like to know the names of these investors. If it was all on the up and up Why are they withholding the names!

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probably has, or could access the ownership answers you seek.....IF sone one in high enough a position of authority were to request the data.

Fat chance of THAT ever happening!

It was the usual Neo-Con crowed or so says Michael Ruppert, Tom Flocco and many others who have looked into this. CIA and Banksters

PROFITS OF DEATH -- INSIDER TRADING AND 9-11
by Tom Flocco - Edited by Michael C. Ruppert
link

FTW also revealed that the A.B. Brown (Alex Brown) investment arm of the banking giant Deutschebank/A.B. Brown had been headed until 1998 by the man who is now the Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency - A.B. "Buzzy" Krongard. In fact, Krongard is but one name in a long history of CIA interconnections to stock trading and the world's financial markets. We -Part IIIalso discussed, in detail, the evidence indicating that the CIA and other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time for the purpose of identifying potential attacks of any nature that might damage the U.S. economy.

CIA Executive Director "Buzzy" Krongard Managed Firm That Handled "PUT" Options on UAL

Profits Of Death -- Insider Trading and 9-11

Part II - Trading With The Enemy:

Part III - The Profits Of Death - Special FTW Series on Insider Trading and September 11th

[edit on 19/5/2007 by Sauron]

The president of the Deutsche bank did not think that those put option were nothing:

German central bank president Ernst Welteke later reports that a study by his bank indicates, “There are ever clearer signs that there were activities on international financial markets that must have been carried out with the necessary expert knowledge,” not only in shares of heavily affected industries such as airlines and insurance companies, but also in gold and oil. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001] His researchers have found “almost irrefutable proof of insider trading.” [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] “If you look at movements in markets before and after the attack, it makes your brow furrow. But it is extremely difficult to really verify it.” Nevertheless, he believes that “in one or the other case it will be possible to pinpoint the source.” [Fox News, 9/22/2001] Welteke reports “a fundamentally inexplicable rise” in oil prices before the attacks [Miami Herald, 9/24/2001] and then a further rise of 13 percent the day after the attacks. Gold rises nonstop for days after the attacks. [Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001]

Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg Business News, speaking of the trading on Morgan Stanley and other companies, says, “This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence.”

Yeah again nothing to see here move along......

Guys, the majority of your information was taken only a few weeks if not DAYS post 911. BEFORE it was investigated! There was an investigation. Read it.

Originally posted by CameronFox
Guys, the majority of your information was taken only a few weeks if not DAYS post 911. BEFORE it was investigated! There was an investigation. Read it.

The only problem is we can't read the investigation, only the conclusion as spewed forth in the appendix of the 9/11 Commission Report. This is the same commission co-chaired by Lee Hamilton, who was coincidentally hired by admitted thief and destroyer of terrorist related documents, Sandy Berger.

I.e., there was no independent investigation ever made public to read -only the conclusion as interpreted by the 9/11 Commission. Somebody made a ton of money on those put options. Who?

Joseph Cella interview (Sept. 16, 2003; May 7, 2004; May 10-11, 2004); FBI briefing (Aug. 15, 2003); SEC memo, Division of Enforcement to SEC Chair and Commissioners, "Pre-September 11, 2001 Trading Review," May 15, 2002; Ken Breen interview (Apr. 23, 2004); Ed G. interview (Feb. 3, 2004).

Do some research, these are the people who were involved with the investigation.

Originally posted by CameronFox
Joseph Cella interview (Sept. 16, 2003; May 7, 2004; May 10-11, 2004); FBI briefing (Aug. 15, 2003); SEC memo, Division of Enforcement to SEC Chair and Commissioners, "Pre-September 11, 2001 Trading Review," May 15, 2002; Ken Breen interview (Apr. 23, 2004); Ed G. interview (Feb. 3, 2004).

Do some research, these are the people who were involved with the investigation.

I could only find the citations to these reports by the 9/11 Commission. Do you have links to the actual reports?

I don't ... but when i get some time to see if they are available, i will forward them to you.

Even though we don't have evidence of who placed the trades, we do have evidence that the propaganda re the trades began early.

Check out this NewsMax story from June 2002:




Notice how the entire story is framed to downplay any significance to the insider trading -and this was only 10 months after 9/11 and before any investigations had been completed. At this point it was entirely feasible that the trades could have been traced back to OBL himself.


Next, the story continues with some total b.s. The story tries to downplay the profit at only $13 a share. But these are options we're talking about, not stocks.




It is very common to buy an "out of the money" option for a very small premium. In this case, it wouldn't be unreasonable to have $35-strike-price put options selling for $0.50 a share pre-9/11.

(The strike price is the price at which the option buyer has the option to sell the stock to somebody else. If the stock is selling for $20 a share, and the option owner can sell the stock for $35 a share, he will make a $15 a share premium).

When the stock dropped to $29 a share immediately after 9/11, and then continued to plunge to under $10 a share in the subsequent months, the original $0.50 put options could have sky-rocketed to over $25 a share. This would be a 50 to 1 return on the investor's money.




So if the investor would have purchased $1 million of out of the money put options pre-9/11, it's very reasonable that the profits would have been in the neigborhood of $50 million.

And if it's an institutional company that made the trade, the next thing to look at would be whether or not The Carlyle Group had any investments in this institution. The Carlyle Group is an offshore investment company that had a meeting in Washington D.C on 9/10/01, apparently attended by some prominent investors, including Bush Sr. and a bin Laden family member. At least this is the rumor...

In any case, it's painfully obvious that NewsMax was attempting to incorrectly downplay the 9/11 put option story even before the investigation was completed. Why?

Heres an interesting thought. Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were both directors of AB Brown. Back then they were known as Brown Brothers-Harriman. Id bet that family still has big ties with that company. Just my thoughts on the issue. Good posting of info so far in here though.

The fact that the put-options where huge is not the major problem..

The CIA has powerful real time second displays of the Stock Market to watch for "unusual disturbances" .. one of the things they specifically watch is put-options and calls.. this is because in the event of an attack that will effect a specific industry, they would know or at least investigate the put-options..


The CIA seemingly ignored one of the largest put-option spikes in several years, the spike would have been detected by the computers run by the CIA and the team that monitors the markets would have been alerted.

But then again the CIA had so many other warnings, why would they pay attention to this one to?

Nick, Sauron, everybody, great input! I'm only popping in for a minute but intend to do more research soon and hopefully find something new and interesting. Just another quick note regarding aB Brown:

September 14, 2001: Deutsche Bank Exec Resigns, Prompting Speculations of 9/11 Connection
Mayo Shattuck III resigns, effective immediately, as head of the Alex Brown unit of Deutsche Bank. No reason is given. Some speculate later that this could have to do with the role of Deutsche Bank in the pre-9/11 purchases of put options on the stock of companies most affected by 9/11. Deutsche Bank is also one of the four banks most used by the bin Laden family. [New York Times, 9/15/2001; Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001]

www.cooperativeresearch.org... line.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=insiderTrading

Since we are on the subject of stock bets, I got 1000 pounds sterling to bet that the real people behind those put options were the Saudis, and thus, the reason it is claimed they are "nothing to worry about" and no names have been given. Ill bet big cash on the Saudis. And as we know, Bush is a bed buddy of the Saudi government and their oil sheiks, so this info will never see the light of day.

I wonder if that was why all references to the saudi government and royal family were blacked out in the 9/11 report.. Remember, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. And the Saudi government is the biggest exporter and funder of Islamic extremism. Bin laden, After all, is a Saudi.

nick7261
This would be a 50 to 1 return on the investor's money

vs

These investigators have found that the apparently suspicious consistently proved innocuous

in·noc·u·ous(-nky-s)
adj.
1. Having no adverse effect; harmless.
2. Not likely to offend or provoke to strong emotion; insipid.

nice choice of words there eh?

Just one more piece to the puzzle, or is it a riddle? The put options was another coinsidence that when taken by itself could be dismissed as buisness as usual. However, the fact we're discussing it and all the other coinsidents of 911 make them more ominous. I hate to think it was all about the money but it just keeps coming home to roost. Was 911 the biggest ripoff in the history of the world?

Sauron: Thanks for that post! That's what I was gonna go find, but hey, leverage others' brains. There's bored people... I looked into all this once, but I forgot Flocco was involved. I'll have to check all this out for myself before going off...

Nick: Stellar contribution! Too good actually to comment on at the moment, that's for when I really dig in.

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Since we are on the subject of stock bets, I got 1000 pounds sterling to bet that the real people behind those put options were the Saudis, [...] Bin laden, After all, is a Saudi.

Hmmmm... Because all the Saudis knew, and wanted it to happen, becuase they want to see their buddies' nation fail under terrorstorm, and think they can sneak in some foretelling side deals and then waltz up and claim the dividends? I still haven't sorted it out for myself, but it seems an American job. It shows probable foresight, an apparent side-stepping of intelligence tip-offs, and a domestin pedigree that rendered it harmless-seeming and so they actually DID collect. Hmmm...

IMO all the Saudi bashing is psyops. Not that it's all untrue, but framed up and much-hyped. No action? No bombing? Good buddies? That's a silk veil draped over a sharp sword. A blank-check threat. Pakistan's situation is much similar. Most charges of Pakistani involvement in 9/11 originate with Indian intelligence but are bought (again tho not acted on yet) by the Powers That Be. Such dirt, real or fabricated, on the top nuclear power and top religious and oil-producing power in the Muslim world might prove useful in the multi-generational "Long War" against the bad guys of the Muslim world.

Have a nice Sunday!
[edit on 20-5-2007 by Caustic Logic]

[edit on 20-5-2007 by Caustic Logic]