[spinlock]

No, the Apple example is excellent. I forget what the name of the blog is but there's an investor who investigates firms for fraud, shorts their stock, then publishes his finding. It's not illegal in the slightest and is a public service.

Now, you seem to think that there should be communication between a trading desk and Madoff's custodian. Any compliance officer would disagree. There is simply too much risk of front running the client's account to allow this (especially when the account is as large as Madoff's).

[ddebernardy]

> No, the Apple example is excellent. I forget what the name of the blog is but there's an investor who investigates firms for fraud, shorts their stock, then publishes his finding. It's not illegal in the slightest and is a public service.

Err... If you're thinking about the handful of self-proclaimed "activist investors" who frequently end up massively short after "investigating" the stocks they abandon, please spend some time reading http://www.deepcapture.com. You'll find their names in rather dubious company -- including Madoff, incidentally -- and associated with mountains of illegal activity.

[spinlock]

I'm thinking of Guys like Chanos.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chanos

[ddebernardy]

Ya, check him out on deepcapture. His name shows up every so often, and not in very good light.