Trump quer despedir responsável de estatísticas laborais dos EUA após fortes revisões em baixa

[Resina]

Regulator probes VW share trades

[/quote]
Se forem mais eficazes que a nossa CMVM....

[atomez]

Regulator probes VW share trades

By Richard Milne in London
Published: October 29 2008 08:33 | Last updated: October 29 2008 15:01

Germany’s financial regulator has opened a formal investigation into possible market manipulation in Volkswagen’s shares after they first quadrupled and then nearly halved in value.

The probe by Bafin came as Porsche continued the extraordinary rollercoaster ride in Volkswagen’s shares when it said on Wednesday it would sell 5 per cent of VW to try to avoid “further market distortions” that had threatened the survival of some hedge funds.

Porsche, which sparked panic-buying among hedge funds by revealing at the weekend that it held up to 74.1 per cent in VW directly or indirectly, said it would settle hedging transactions up to 5 per cent in an attempt to nearly double the free float in Europe’s largest carmaker.

VW’s shares, which had quadrupled on Monday and Tuesday alone to make it the second-largest company in the world by value, fell 37 per cent to €570. But that would still leave Porsche booking a handsome profit on any sale as it has said in the past that the average buying price for its VW stake was €70-€100. Shares in Porsche were 25 per cent higher at €57.80

Max Warburton, analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said: “Porsche are set to shock the financial community yet again by making money – lots of money – out of this situation.”

Some leading investors – led by DWS, Germany’s largest fund manager – have said that Porsche has manipulated the market. But Porsche said on Wednesday that it “denies all responsibility for these market distortions and for the resulting risks to which the short sellers have exposed themselves.” In a statement headlined: “Short sellers responsible for extreme price movements in Volkswagen”, Porsche said it wished to point out that the applicable capital markets law provisions had been “complied with at all times”.

The surge in the German carmaker’s share price was triggered by Porsche’s revelation on Sunday it had a much larger interest in the carmaker than many traders had realised, sparking panic among hedge funds which had bet on VW’s share price falling. Porsche’s enlarged holding meant that there was a free float of only 5.8 per cent — the state of Lower Saxony has a 20.1 per cent stake — which sent traders rushing to cover short positions by buying stock from a shrinking pool of available shares.

The squeeze on short-sellers is thought by many market participants to be the biggest in history and is likely to lead to large losses at many traders and perhaps even the failure of some hedge funds.

Porsche said on Sunday that it held a 42.6 per cent equity stake, up from a previously-disclosed 35 per cent. In addition, it holds options over 31.5 per cent of VW shares but these settle into cash rather than convert into shares. Under German law, cash-settled options do not need to be disclosed.

Regulators worldwide, including the Financial Services Authority in the UK, are grappling with how and whether to regulate cash-settled options.

VW’s share price closed at €210 on Friday before soaring as high as €1,005 on Tuesday.

Its fall on Wednesday meant the Dax 30 index of leading shares fell 2 per cent even though all other 29 members apart from VW rose, most of them by more than 10 per cent.

As a result of the distortion, Deutsche Börse, which operates the Frankfurt stock exchange, said late on Tuesday it would limit VW’s weight in the index, currently at 27 per cent, to 10 per cent.

[atomez]

Na Porsche é que está o ganho

VW Shares Plunge, a Day After Surge

By REUTERS
Published: October 29, 2008

FRANKFURT (Reuters) — Shares in Volkswagen were nearly halved on Wednesday after the controlling shareholder, Porsche, took steps to ease a squeeze on short-sellers that more than quadrupled the stock in days.

“In order to avoid further market distortions and the resulting consequences for those involved,” Porsche said, it intends “to settle hedging transactions in the amount of up to 5 percent of the Volkswagen ordinary shares.”

“This may result in an increase in the liquidity of the Volkswagen ordinary shares,” it added.

A Merck Finck analyst, Robert Heberger, said Porsche’s counterparty in the options deal would probably have covered their position by buying VW shares, and could release some now that Porsche had settled some of the options.

The stampede to cover open short positions after Sunday’s announcement vaulted VW’s market value to 278 billion euros ($348 billion) and its shares to finish at a record 945 euros on Tuesday.

Investors cried foul, and the German securities watchdog BaFin said it would take a closer look at Porsche’s dealings for signs of insider trading and market manipulation, but the company said again on Wednesday that it had done nothing wrong.

Analysts at Commerzbank and Merck Finck estimated Porsche’s strike price on its cash-settled hedges were around 100 euros a share, meaning Porsche could make 5.9 billion euros from selling 5 percent of its call options at a price of 500 euros.

Although it stands to gain more than the value of all of its listed preferred shares put together, a Porsche spokesman denied speculation it wanted to “cash in” with the deal.

The German hedge fund association, BAI, said some funds might have been damaged by the squeeze, but that was inevitable in a market economy.

Aleksander Kluzniak, its chief lobbyist, said he saw no need for a regulatory clampdown on derivatives, like a registry of hedging positions, just because the market was surprised by creeping takeovers like Porsche-VW and Schaeffler-Continental, which were facilitated by building up positions in cash-settled options.

“I doubt it would lead to the required results. New types of derivatives or trading techniques would emerge that were not subject to this regulation,” Mr. Kluzniak said.

Only 24 hours after peaking as the world’s biggest company by market value, VW stock fell as low as 491 euros on Wednesday as the market exhaled in relief that Porsche was releasing a part of its hedge and easing the worst of the squeeze.

The retreat in VW stock kept Germany’s blue-chip DAX index in check despite double-digit percentage gains on other stocks after Wall Street clocked up its second-best day’s gain on Tuesday.

Down 36 percent at 600 euros late Wednesday morning, VW’s fall shaved off roughly 485 points from the index on Wednesday, meaning the DAX would otherwise be trading up nearly 11 percent were it not for the Volkswagen effect.

Deutsche Börse, operator of the Frankfurt exchange, said late Tuesday that it would cut the weighting of Volkswagen shares in the DAX to 10 percent from Monday after VW’s leap had distorted the index.

The index provider, Stoxx Ltd., also said it would cut the weighting of Volkswagen shares in its main indexes and cut Volkswagen’s free-float factor to 0.3732 from 0.4963.

Volkswagen shares touched 1,000 euros at one point, pushing its weighting in the 30 member-DAX index to 27 percent.

Short-sellers who rushed to close their positions after Porsche’s announcement on Sunday were paying virtually any price to get their hands on the few remaining shares, even though Porsche insisted its announcement would allow short-sellers to unwind their positions “without haste and without greater risk.”

There was wide speculation about which investment companies had been caught in the short squeeze, and many banking shares fell as a result.