[...]... not want any of his money She and her husband, also very independent-minded, wanted to prove they could make it on their own without a penny of fatherly assistance Other than her most intimate friends, she avoided telling anyone that her dad was a famous CEO Her world 1 2 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar was teaching physics at an Arlington, Virginia, high school, and she wanted to... fallacies, and disclose the weaknesses 25 26 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar In Wall Street firms of the 1990s, however, there was a virtual absence of dissenting voices, an unprecedented unanimity of praise, and far more hype in sales pitches What was behind this change? The same force that drove CEOs to tell half-truths or outright lies about their sales and profits money and greed... gave CEOs the chance to make the killing of a thousand lifetimes, and they never once had to be recorded as an expense or be deducted from the profits that were reported to shareholders Options made it possible for CEOs to plunder a company and pull out a king’s ransom, yet keep shareholders in the dark almost indefinitely 9 10 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar This CEO already owned... mind-boggling profit projections, dazzling tales of futuristic technological marvels 7 8 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar The chief executive was also intimately familiar with the target audience for his show -and- tells It wasn’t the tens of thousands of investors who would pour their life savings and retirement funds into his company’s shares Nor was it the hundreds of mutual fund managers... scenarios for UCBS shares, starting from $10 all the way up to $100 “This is a summary sheet showing how much you and the rest of senior management can make with our new proposal, depending on what happens to UCBS share prices,” she declared 11 12 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar Johnston stared down at the spreadsheet while hiding a narrow smile The bottom-line number for his total... Wall Street, the entire U.S government, and millions of investors that it was the seventh largest company in America—larger than Walt Disney, J.P Morgan Chase, Boeing, 3M, and Chevron Texaco Later, it was discovered that had Enron’s revenues been valued accurately, it would have ranked closer to 69th largest 13 14 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar The consultants also cited others... trade one 17 18 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar of the standard, already-established derivative contracts that are offered on various exchanges You can just create a custom derivative of your own—in almost any size, shape, or color Heck, all they are, in essence, is contracts So you go to some other player in this game—it could be a competitor, a bank, whatever and you say, ‘I betcha... even invested a few million dollars into its own TV studio and satellite hookup at its Wall Street headquarters— so the stock offering could all be carefully orchestrated on CNBC, 19 20 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar the nation’s premier financial news network Harris knew that millions of investors would watch the program and that those who didn’t would pick up the stock recommendation... them.” 21 22 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar “But what about your boss’s rating on UCBS?” asked the former roommate “Does he plan to maintain his buy on the stock?” “For now, yes or at least until the spotlight is off the stock Then, Don Walker figures we’ll just downgrade it quietly to an ‘accumulate’ and then maybe to a ‘hold.’ He says we’ll let ’em down slow and gentle Maybe... was about $20,000 As she pondered her predicament one afternoon, the phone rang and interrupted her thoughts It was Dubois again To her utter dismay, he recommended that she buy another 2,000 shares in the same company that was now sinking her portfolio like a torpedo 3 4 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar “Look,” he said “All these bad rumors you hear about the company are a blessing . BROKER’S HIDDEN AGENDA 1 CHAPTER 2 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar was teaching physics at an Arlington, Virginia, high school, and she wanted to keep. in the same company that was now sinking her portfolio like a torpedo. 4 Crash Profits: Make Money When Stocks Sink and Soar “Look,” he said. “All these