-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2004 7:15 PM
To:
Subject: hello martha, hello fartha


of course the whole martha thing is was and will continue to be absurd. i never understood martha's cultural position in the us - i only knew that she sold housey stuff so i mite be missing an important bit of understanding in my banalysis...

the main (dropped) charge was really outta Wonderland - one can only imagine ashcroft giggling maniacally about it under his white sheets. i dont know why he didnt go after some black chick instead - oprah or someone... kill 2 birds with one stone - altho maybe the danger of the oprah msg may have been that only black women are targets - which mite lead to some uppity white chick getting all unrealistic and aspiring to get outta the kitchen.

speaking of getting tarred, i love the little grafix that compare martha (50k) with bernie and ken and dennis et al with a straight face.

given that the whole thing stinks to hi-heaven - its fun to consider the trading in mso on friday and the inaccurate media announcements, and the reporting.

firstly, there arent many stories about the medias mistakes (see attached), in a totally over-reported story.
2nd, the article sez "networks had to devise intricate plans to get the news out - involving scarves, placards, cell phones and quick feet" - seems to me they are trying too hard to explain it. im not sure how intricate a cell phone is, or 'quick feet'... the fotos of people holding up placards are cute - praps they could have had a plan that if all charges were guilty, there'd be a separate signal. that could have prolly saved some of the misadventure... or praps they could have used their cellphones/sms/blackberry... technology is so advanced these days that they could have sent the msg str8 to the studio, and take the extra step (or two) outta the process. the networks had one journo per charge, and they had to tick either the guilty or not guilty box - somehow the guy got that wrong. he must have been really nervous.
3. i went looking for some info about the actual timeline during the day - given that the stock dropped 40% in an hour, and there were acknowledged errors in reporting, i figured that the actual timing mite be relevant. the only thing i could learn is that the 'martha: innocent" msg was put on screens for 6 secs. there was no mention of when that happened, or how long till it was retracted. surely that info is relevant, so why not mention it? the nyt was reporting on stock trades down do the increment of seconds http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/06/business/06place.html?ex=1079240400&en=dbffdb8a6892239a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE. the graph of the days trading is also attached.
4. im not sure wot the rules are re halting trading but the nyse stopped trading at 3.02pm. the closest i can get to a time when the jury returned to the room is 'about 3pm' - no details about when the verdict was given either.
5. another curious but prolly irrelvant thing is that the trading took off at exactly 2pm - kinda like that was in the plan too. im always a bit suspicious of round numbers - nature doesnt seem to care that much about them too much. actually the stock was remarkably stable all week (u can see mos 5 day attached) and then went ballistic at 2pm fri. its not like mos was hypertracking the case whenever marthas 'eyes opened slighly wider'. im assuming that the inccorect reports came out around 3pm, and that the 2pm hike was therefore not related to that - presumably some other rumour went around at 2pm (altho the jury had already been out for 3 days)

long live the retail investor. it'd be fun to look at the schwab/etrade logs.

ftr - my bookie sense tells me that if the stock is worth $17 on the rumour that she mite have been cleared on the first charge, then a 40% reduction is prolly overdone - especially with the appeal process and all. it prolly wont help having martha on courttv forever - but theres a juicy 70%+ on the table. the media seems to be taking a 'no appeal' position - if that continues thru the weekend then therell prolly be some more weakness early in the week, but of course she'll appeal, which at leaves gives u some upside risk. and given ashcrofts astonishing record of having exactly zero charges stick for any terrorist activity (i think cheech is his only success - and that was only for drug-related-paraphenalia-program activites) - so marthas gotta have a good chance. in fact, i saw bigjohn annouincing the ebbers charges the other day - it was the first time i ever thought that bernie had a chance.