SEC reportedly investigating stock manipulation following rumors of Samsung buying Blackberry
Remember when we questioned whether some funny business was going on with the weird Samsung/Blackberry acquisition rumor (that was denied nearly as quickly as Reuters reported it) and pondered whether the SEC should investigate? Looks like we might have been on to something.
CNBC reports that the SEC is looking into a series of suspicious trades leading up to the publishing of the rumor. One trade that apparently stood out took place at 12:06PM on January 14th for 200,000 shares at $10 per pop.
The reason that would be so bad is because the rumor hiked Blackberry’s price to $12.60 per share at one point, and the purchaser of those shares might have been able to make $490,000 of profit on a meager $20,000 investment. As it stands, CNBC’s supposed source claims the SEC hasn’t yet determined if those shares were re-sold during the hours which Blackberry’s stock was at its highest.
The SEC is also reportedly investigating the possibility that the unnamed source who provided the original details of this unsubstantiated story to Reuters had any trading activity as it pertains to Blackberry’s stock. Reuters itself is not currently said to be suspected of wrongdoing.
In a market where unchecked corruption can often slip by the SEC it isn’t unnatural for anyone to immediately suspect foul play when it comes to these sorts of things, but one has to wonder how powerful a source it was for Reuters to report the story in the first place. Reuters later clarified that their source said acquisition talks were being made between mere advisers and not actual company officials.
A publication which likely goes to great lengths to check the validity of their sources might only accept information from people directly within the company. We wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking some jaded Blackberry executive was looking to find an easy way out of a bleak future before the buildings came crashing down and decided to feed Reuters a convenient story to make that happen.
As it stands, though, this report — as well as the original rumor — are both products of unnamed sources and anonymous figures, so perhaps the ultimate moral of this story is that it isn’t wise to jump to far-reaching conclusions either way.
That’s not to say we wouldn’t love to see Samsung buying Blackberry, nor would we say there’s no possibility of that ever happening, but it’s starting to look like someone was merely running a game for the benefit of their own wallet. We’ll be keeping tabs on this one for sure.