In the right hand menu I have added to new discussion areas.
Bond Discussion
HDO Rants
As with everything we have in the right hand menu it is simply to isolate certain topics which allows other areas to be reserved for their specific need. By keeping the topics isolated if someone, for instance, has a important message in Reader Initiated Alerts we don’t have to wade through less critical chatter to get the to the real meat of the message.
I have an idea for a new discussion area. It could be titled “Filings, Redemptions, and Pricings”. The proposed area would be solely reserved for the the type of information typically posted by J and Early Bird.
I use Mozilla on a Windows 10 PC and I cannot see the ‘Like’ hyperlinks. Anyone else have the same issue?
I do see it if use the Microsoft Edge browser (which I prefer not to use!)
Tim – Is everybody getting the same message I am in place of a “like” button right now??? “Like Button Notice (FREE tariff plan allows to show maximum 1 button(s) per page. Upgrade your website plan on LikeBtn.com. To remove such notices uncheck Show Info Notices chekbox on plugin Settings tab.)”
Getting it as well…hope it’s not malicious to anyone opening it.
Tim ~ what do you think??
What does “HDO” stand for?
Thanks,
D.
David asks: “What does “HDO” stand for?”
David, HDO is short for High Dividend Opportunities which is a paid service on Seeking Alpha. The head guy is Rida Morwa, but he is assisted by several other authors, often times Pendragon or Preferred Stock Trader.
On this board, III, they might be referred to as HDO, Rida or Pendy.
There are at least four issues that some III’ers have with HDO.
1) They typically pick the highest yielding preferred/baby bond to recommend to investors, because it is enticing. They often times understate the risk. Several of their recommendation have literally gone bankrupt. Others have suffered catastrophic losses but have not gone bankrupt (yet.)
2) They ignore their past history of recommendations. They might recommend an issue when it is selling for say $20. Then it drops to $10 and they write a NEW post recommending it again, WITHOUT mentioning they recommended it earlier. Obviously anybody that bought it on the first recommendation is suffering.
3) When someone posts any critical comments they typically get deleted on short order. We do NOT know if it is a HDO person or a SA person, but “responsible opposing comments” are NOT welcome.
4) There is a suspicion that is NOT provable by us, that they are taking advantage of very illiquid preferreds to reward “insiders”. The mechanism would be something like:
a) Have “insiders” buy positions in XYZ
b) Publish a recommendation to HDO paid subscribers on XYZ, which pushes the price up
c) Release the recommendation to the free SA readers on XYZ which further pushes the price up
d) Creates a potential opportunity for insiders and/or paid subscribers to make a quick profit, mostly based on HDO’s ability to move the price up.
In the last two days, a few of HDO’s picks have done very poorly. Yesterday it was HMLP-A which closed down 21%. Today it was ALIN-A,B, E which all closed down ~ 62%. HDO had written SA posts recommending all four of these. The posts are NOT recent, but at the same time they did NOT post any sell recommendations, so there is an assumption they were still valid HDO recommendations.
@Tex the 2nd , thank you for your very detailed response. I indeed sometimes read the free articles on SA, and it’s good to be reminded of the dangers of careless investing based on casual reading.
Your no. 4 sounds like a classic pump-and-dump scam. I have always assumed that they are illegal, but I have never tried to check. If the management of SA itself is involved in such a scam, or even if they have good grounds for suspicion and ignore them, I would say that that is enough to remove from them the the normal presumption of honesty in ANY matter.
Once again, reminders to use normal caution never hurt, and I thank you for your help.
Thanks.
D.
I don’t know how many of you have a subscription with Rida, but No4 is exactly how it works. He releases the article to his subscribers, and 2 weeks later to the general public. You can clearly see the volume bars on those two separate days. The tough bit is that he has some ‘research’ behind his recommendations, what will SEC do? Everyone is free to invest in whatever they see fit, so I do not think there is anything the regulators can do about his service.
Pump and dump schemes are illegal. The the pattern of buy before, pump and then dump that constitutes the crime. What will the SEC do and what should the SEC are separate questions. In the case of Bernie Madoff, the SEC had credible information about fraud for a decade before they acted. Harry Markopolos served the evidence to SEC on a silver platter.
sometimes the “research” ain’t just a research …
http://ir.farmlandpartners.com/News/news-details/2021/Rota-Fortunae-Author-of-July-2018-Attack-on-Farmland-Partners-Retracts-Short-and-Distort-Article-Admits-Articles-Falsity-and-Returns-Multiples-of-Trading-Profits-He-Gained-from-Attack/default.aspx
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/47800059-rota-fortunae/5605955-mathews-settlement-press-release
Nicely summarized, TII. I know you appreciate that your comments, notwithstanding their accuracy, would not be published at Seeking Alpha. Those with no background with HDO think they have just discovered sliced bread when they read their posts. Found money. +20% yields with no risk.
So, two blow up in one week? HDO is ahead of even their record.
I also loved the HDO coverage of SPNT-B. They were flogging it when it was 29.50 and pushing the idea of a 32 price target. At 32, the YTC on this certain to be called issue was 1.6% for a 5-year hold.
The issue first got mentioned here on III on 6-28, almost a month before the HDO post, when the price was under 26. I offered up a post at SA to that effect but, of course, it didn’t make it into print.
Even when HDO gets it right, they get it wrong.
David, HDO stands for High Destruction Opportunities for the money and financial assets you have.
Ha, ha…..Good sense of humor with the HDO Rants Section.
Maybe just call it just Rants, or Fight Club, or better yet Thunderdome. When I worked in the biz, let me just say their was colorful language and controversial/un-PC topics discussed daily (NEVER with customers). Maybe times have changed?
Anyhow, thanks for putting up with me (us).
NWGG–good idea–maybe should change it.
Tim – And just for clarification purposes, will “Bond Discussion,” be meant essentially for 1k denomination bonds identified primarily by CUSIP #’s as opposed to the current discussions of Baby bonds, aka notes, aka bonds, that are identified primarily by a symbol and have denominations such as $10, $25, $50, and $100 or others lower than 1k?
2wr–yes mostly $1000 issues. I will clarify.
For further clarification, many if not most of the issues worthy of discussion are preferred, not bonds or notes. 90% of my list is preferred. “Institutional Issues” would be a more accurate term. Or “Non-exchange FI”. Or such.
I’d agree with “Institutional Issues” as a title to separate it from baby bonds. I’d also hope that the discussion will cover a broad range of securities that trade on the bond market. More than half of my portfolio is in that market, ranging from fixed-rate corporates to variables to preferreds.
The main challenge isn’t the name IMO, it’s keeping the “education mandate” (LOL) material contained within that discussion area. Seems to have worked out fairly well for the Canadian issues, so we’ll hope for the same with this Rida / Pendragon / HDO / SA area.
Thanks for the creation of the section, Tim.