Leverage Is Exploding in the Fine-Art World (Bloomberg)
A $28 million Warhol. A $35 million Basquiat. A $70 million Twombly. Hedge-fund manager Daniel Sundheim has acquired all these works – and more – while wielding one of the most powerful tools in finance: leverage. Time was, art aficionados rarely talked openly about borrowing money against their paintings to build collections, make investments or just pay the bills.
Massachusetts Man Charged in Multi-Year Insider Trading Scheme (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) Jurors in Boston federal court have returned a verdict finding that Lexington, Massachusetts restauranteur Charlie Chen engaged in illegal insider trading in advance of five earnings announcements of Lexington-based company Vistaprint, N.V. The SEC’s evidence at trial showed that Chen, who was close friends with a Vistaprint insider and her husband, received highly confidential nonpublic information and used it to place trades in advance of five different announcements of Vistaprint’s financial results from April 2013 through July 2014. On some occasions, Chen placed extremely aggressive bets such as wagering much of his retirement account on risky Vistaprint options before the company’s announcement of disappointing earnings results in April 2014.
Amazon.com Inc (AMZN) Chairman, CEO and President Jeffrey P Bezos Sold $465 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman, CEO and President of Amazon.com Inc., Jeffrey P Bezos, sold 229,981 shares of AMZN on 02/03/2020 at an average price of $2021.93 a share. The total sale was $465 million. Amazon.com Inc is an online retailer. The Company sells its products through the website which provides services, such as advertising services and co-branded credit card agreements. It also offers electronic devices like Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets.
Wednesday 2/5 Insider Buying Report: EFSC, ANVS (Nasdaq.com)
As the saying goes, there are many possible reasons for an insider to sell a stock, but only one reason to buy — they expect to make money. So let’s look at two noteworthy recent insider buys. On Monday, Enterprise Financial Services’ Director, John S. Eulich, made a $222,250 purchase of EFSC, buying 5,026 shares at a cost of $44.22 each. So far Eulich is in the green, up about 3.4% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $45.71. Enterprise Financial Services is trading up about 1.7% on the day Wednesday. This buy marks the first one filed by Eulich in the past year.
A Director at Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, a Director at Goldman Sachs Group (GS), David Viniar, sold shares of GS for $6.06M. Following David Viniar’s last GS Sell transaction on October 31, 2014, the stock climbed by 65.3%. In addition to David Viniar, one other GS executive reported Sell trades in the last month.
