Wall Street versus America versus my better judgement
A friend who's been following this blog for the past few months paid me a striking compliment recently. She said I am "the anti-Gary Weiss."
As she explained, that's not to say I'm necessarily anti-Gary Weiss, but that where Gary is in all things the Yang, I am the Yin, thus maintaining balance in the universe.
When I asked her for an example, she pointed to our respective approaches to Amazon book reviews.
Where Gary has dedicated an enormous amount of energy toward inventing dozens of over-the-top raving reviews of his own books, I only review media I've legitimately purchased and consumed, and on the one occasion I've had to light-heartedly comment on something I had in fact written, I clearly disclosed that I was the author.
I suspect that is what left me so bothered by the accusation leveled by Gary's minion-for-hire ScipioAfricanus that I had panned Gary's book when, as he wrote, "the evidence seems to indicate that he has never even read the book."
Evidence? What evidence might that be?
To put a fork in that entire line of (il)logic, I offered this visual restatement of my initial Amazon review (click to enlarge).
Upon further reflection, I remembered that if I've learned anything about Gary Weiss over the past year, it's that his sketchy relationship with Truth always provides solid content for this blog. And so with that in mind, I decided to not just re-read, but to study Gary's book and report to you, my loyal readers, anything exceptional I might find therein.
Consider this exception #1.
On page 33 (of the hardcover version), Weiss holds up the trading history of Genesis Intermedia (GENI) as indicative of the excesses of a stock promoter known as The Waaco Kid.
Unfortunately, a brief consultation with the truth reveals that the company in question was actually Genesis International Financial Services (GIFS).
Much like network hardware maker Cisco and foodservice product distributor Sysco.
.
After all, both try to make things get from one place to another. Cisco moves bits of data, while Sysco moves cases of Vegeline non-stick cooking spray. They are identical, for all practical purposes.
Oh man. Is it obvious I'm lingering here to avoid getting back to the book?
Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors: Part One
Before reading what follows, it’s important to know that Yahoo! message board aliases ymh_ymh_ymh, ursa_of_245_park_avenue, ursa_383_madison_avenue, and ursa_minor_245 all belong to Yolanda Holtzee. You can read more on these relationships here.
According to a Wall Street Journal story dated April 18, 2006 (reprinted here, one week later):
In 1998, hoping to make more cash, [Holtzee] began managing money, she says, for a handful of wealthy individuals. She says she stopped taking in new investors in 2000 and won't disclose her firm's assets under management or its performance.
Ms. Holtzee refers to her company, Alcap LLC, as an "investment club" and says she employs two traders in Connecticut and a compliance officer.
Holtzee’s first apparent mention of the fund appears to come in January of 2002.
11-Jan-02
Yolanda, as ursa_of_245_park_avenue, first mentions the fund, which she called ALCAP, LLP. Here she explains what that name means.
26-Jan-02
Two weeks later, ursa_of_245_park_avenue hints as to her fund’s performance
Heebner's returns are not as good as mine by any stretch of the imagination
In a subsequent post, Holtzee continues:
It's not a hedge fund, per se. It's a private investment partnership called ALCAP, LLP aka Casino Ursa.
30-Jan-02
Here Yolanda, as ymh_ymh_ymh, offers insights into the holdings of “Casino Ursa aka ALCAP,” also noting:
Ursa does a great job making Marc and his boys much Richer.
14-May-02
Here ymh_ymh_ymh discloses the cost of a new trading account at Casino Ursa (ALCAP, LLP)...or is she promoting trading accounts at Bear Stearns?
…Who's ready to dump SCH, ET, and AMTD and trade up to my boys and girls at BSC? 500K minimum on a trading account, kids. Casino Ursa ain't cheap but it's worth the price.
24-May-02
Following much confusion by her fellow posters over several seemingly contradictory statements by Holtzee about the nature of ALCAP, ymh_ymh_ymh offers this explanation:
It's a trust fund, LLP type and it is known as the holding company, ALCAP. No listing for it. Small and private.
9-Jun-02
Yet two weeks later, Yolanda, as ursa_383_madison_avenue, goes out of her way to suggest that she actually works for Bear Stearns.
…Yes, my firm, took many dogs public and our clients got those shares at offer price. Our clients sold those dogs in late 1999/2000 for the most part and we shorted the living hell out of them and made some very nice money taking them downhill skiing. Our clients are not naive. Our brokers are the world's best. My firm's trading within 10% of an all time high. My firm is the might Bear Stearns (BSC:NYSE)…Our clients are happy. Our brokers are happy. Our price chart is BEAUTIFUL. We are the mighty Bear Stearns (BSC: NYSE). BSC stands for Breakfast of Super Champions. For more on my firm, please view my YHOO profile.
ursa_383_madison_avenue’s user profile, static since May 15, 2002, lists as her profession “Hedge Fund Manager.”
14-Nov-02
Five months later, ymh_ymh_ymh says she’s back in the hedge fund business.
I co-manage a hedge fund called ALCAP. We're offshore, not registered.
At this point, it’s unclear whether Holtzee’s ALCAP is a hedge fund, a trust fund, or an investment club, and why Bear Stearns continues entering the picture.
But much more interesting is the question of what role billionaire Marc Rich plays in this fund.
Recall the above comment from January 30, 2002, in which Holtzee commented: “Ursa does a great job making Marc and his boys much Richer.”
Now compare that comment with the remnants of a comment made by Yolanda as ursa_minor_245 on a since-deleted thread, dated August 28, 2000, and captured by another poster here a few months later.
by: ursa_minor_245
(F/Zug, Switzerland)
8/28/00 3:16 pm
Msg: 9274 of 11531
…For the record, and the 5th time at least: I don't work for BSC and I have never worked for BSC. I don't want to work for BSC or ANY hype house. They don't pay enough. I serve Marc Rich, the best trader that ever lived, Baar none. You make as much money as you want serving him. No rules...just go for it.
Subsequent comments by Holtzee make it clear that she is in fact referring to fugitive billionaire Marc Rich, who at that point had yet to be pardoned by President Clinton.
If true, this admission of directly engaging in commerce with an expatriate fugitive whose indictment on tax fraud in 1983 was called the “biggest in history” is shocking.
Furthermore, the possibility that the shadowy ALCAP/Casino Ursa/Bear Cub Capital Management, which, depending on when you ask the question, is either a trust or a hedge fund or an investment club organized as an LLC or LLP, that either is or is not affiliated with Bear Stearns, might have served as one of Marc Rich’s notoriously numerous offshore money laundering or campaign finance law-skirting vehicles should be investigated.
The next installment of Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors will examine Holtzee’s more contemporary online stock commenting activities, and the role Marc Rich and others might play in influencing her rather malleable attitude toward certain companies’ share values.
Yolanda Holtzee’s House of Mirrors (foreword)
In the search for a pithy introduction, all I've managed to come up with is this: if I hadn't seen it myself, I would not have believed it.
But even that misses the point somewhat, as I feel very much as though the layers surrounding the enigma that is Yolanda Holtzee have barely been peeled back, and that the greatest revelations have yet to come.
If that's possible.
What I am certain of is the fact that if I were to wait until I felt confident that all relevant data had been gathered and considered, this post never would have happened, as each day brings more and the pace of discovery is only accelerating. That's why this topic will be treated over the course of at least three installments (not including this post, which is essentially a preface to what follows).
Given the scope of this project, we're also actively requesting the assistance of additional supporters. Please email me to learn more about how you can help us do this project justice.
Between now and the first full installment of this story (arriving within 48 hours), please review this sidebar, which serves to outline some of the overwhelming numbers of Yolanda's online identities, in addition to providing a brief explanation of how we've come to establish these relationships.