Pump 'n' Dump
"FB’s stock wanted to drop under the IPO price of $38 many times during its 1st day of trading…only the underwriters held it up so they wouldn’t be publicly humiliated…they won’t always be there to prop this thing up, much like promoters eventually give up on pump and dumps when they’ve sold all their shares and the stocks ALL drop in the same exact manner…" ~ Timothy Sykes
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| 1972 "FATHER AND SON", oil on canvas, 38" by 30" Norman Rockwell |
CATALOGUE NOTE
In 1972 the United States Trust Company commissioned Norman Rockwell to paint Father and Son for the cover of their annual report. In a letter dated June 14, 2002, Maureen Hart Hennessey of The Norman Rockwell Museum writes, "the original idea was to show an entire family as 'Dad' tries to explain to his family 'the instruments of wealth'...Rockwell's version is much clearer and easier to understand, simply a father and son discussing these issues in the living room, with the family dog nearby." The setting for the painting was the U.S. Trust offices at 45 Wall Street and the models were an actual father and son from Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In Father and Son, a well-dressed, man is attempting to explain the fundamental principles behind financial instruments. With an investment certificate in his hand and numerous papers strewn about the living room table, the father looks towards his son, whose attentive but anxious and somewhat blank expression suggests his naiveté.
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| Models posing in the artist's living room in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. |
"Said pot wasn’t sweetened for the unknowing public, who listened to sweet melodies of Facebook’s web dominance by the propaganda outfit known to you as CNBC. The pot was saccharined for the direct benefit of selling insiders, who put an additional 25% more shares on the market, to be dumped at the ipo price of $38– valuing the company at $104 billion. Just a few weeks prior, the company was allegedly worth just $96 billion, according to lead underwriter Morgan Stanley.
What’s $8 billion between friends, no?"
"…FB dropping 15%+ or the fact that it would have dropped even more had the underwriters not supported it yet again in order to avoid the inevitable embarrassment when Facebook does indeed drop 30-40% or even more as the hype fades and their slowing growth reality sets in." ~ Timothy Sykes
