GOING BACK ON MY WORD

I know I had said previously that I was going to get off the PFG topic, but I just decided to read through the court docket to see what was going on and there is a mushroom cloud now above the city of San Diego. The following are a few excerpts from recent court filings:

. The Trustee also requests authority to increase the compensation paid to the 

Debtor’s general counsel, Rebecca Wing.  During calendar year 2011, the Debtor paid Ms. Wing 

$380,219.92 annually, which was comprised of a base salary and bonus.  During the Trustee’s 

operation of the Debtor’s business, it has become apparent that Ms. Wing’s services are 

invaluable.  Ms. Wing contains a wealth of knowledge regarding the Debtor’s business and has 

extensive experience as a commodity/financial  services attorney.  Based on the outstanding 

services provided by Ms. Wing, the Trustee requests authority to modestly increase her annual 

compensation to $400,000.  This amount represents only a slight increase in Ms. Wing’s salary 

from calendar year 2011.    

You mean to tell me I am paying a frickin attorney more than she was paid while she participated in the theft of my money, because of how valuable she is? If she were that valuable we would not be in this predicament. How valuable could she be, they have not returned one red cent to us, ZILCH. If it were not for her would we have had to pay in additional money? This is an insult to anyone walking uprights intelligence.

By this Motion, the Trustee requests further 
authority to continue these benefit programs postpetition (collectively, the “Employee Benefits” 
and together with the Wages, the “Employee Obligations”).  The Employee Benefits include the 
Case 12-27488    Doc 123    Filed 08/22/12    Entered 08/22/12 10:09:25    Desc Main
 Document      Page 7 of 9

a. Vacation benefits.  Unless otherwise agreed to by the Debtor, after six 

months of eligible service, an employee is entitled to five vacation days; 

after one year of service, an employee is entitled to ten vacation days; and 

after two or more years, an employee is entitled to fifteen vacation days 

each year.    As of the Petition Date, certain Retained Employees had 

accrued unused vacation days.  The Trustee requests that all Retained 

Employees be authorized to use such accrued vacation days as authorized 

by the Trustee while the Trustee operates the Debtor’s business.  The 

Trustee does not propose to “cash out” any unused vacation time and he is 

not seeking authority to pay the same. 

b. Insurance.   The Debtor provided insurance  coverage and other benefit 

plans to its Retained Employees, which included dental, vision, health, 

disability and life insurance.  The Trustee requests authority to continue 

the insurance obligations for the Retained Employees for the period prior 

to the Petition Date and while the Trustee operates the Debtor’s business.

      

c. 401(k) Obligations.  The Debtor sponsored a 401(k) retirement savings 

plan that is administered through a third-party.  The Debtor provided its 

Retained Employees with a matching contribution (“Contribution 

Program”).  The Trustee does not  seek authority to continue the 

Contribution Program, but seeks authority to permit the Retained 

Employees to continue making contributions to their 401(k) plans. 

  

d. Flexible Spending Accounts.  The Debtor provided its Retained 

Employees with a flexible spending account plan (“Flex Accounts”), 

pursuant to which some Retained Employees maintain accounts for 

healthcare and dependent care.  Under the Flex Accounts, Retained 

Employees have amounts withheld  from their paychecks and those 

amounts subsequently can be used to reimburse Retained Employees for 

their healthcare and dependent care expenses.  The Trustee seeks approval 

of this Court to continue the Flex Accounts with respect to the Retained 

Employees.

Now we are going to keep paying these ...... not only their salaries with our money, but vacation and flexible benefit spending accounts? This is a systematic scheme to bleed us completely dry. That asshole was paying these people these exact benefits out of our money illegally for years, and now that it has sent the company into bankruptcy and some of us onto the verge of that, we see a motion to continue the same? Pay them a salary, fine, but not this other stuff. They don't have anywhere else to go in bum fuck egypt where this place is located to begin with. Are they in such demand that we are bidding for their services? For god sakes this makes me so mad I cannot tell you.

This may seem insensitive on some level since most if not all of the remaining employees are probably good honest people who had nothing to do with any of this. However, what we have to keep in mind is that they are employed on a false premise. I would not choose to just piss more and more of what little money I am likely to get back here, paying these people to do anything. The whole process of bankruptcy is designed to just completely ruin the victims and enrich the lawyers. I will now be drafting a letter to the trustee, this is just beyond belief to me. This all leads me to the following.

When this is all over, and I have recovered by earning back my money through trading, I am going to be on a mission to go after all those who participated in this scheme to take all of our money. If you just do the math from some of the court documents about the $650 an hour one group is being paid, you can see that the longer they can draw this out, the more likely it is they can take all the money and not have to pay any of us anything. Give me $250 and hour and I guarantee I can do an equal or better job of whatever they are doing for that $650. I have an IQ of 145 do you think many of those people can best that? I doubt it. If they can I have a sister who resides at 170 on the IQ scale, that I could bring in as a consultant, if I am too stupid to pull it off. These people have a great scheme, just designed to bilk victims. This is just absolutely sickening.

I am not sure when or where, but I know the what. I will go after these people with everything I have at some point in time, and they are going to wish I had never been born. It will all be legal, but it will be relentless. I seemingly have survived this albeit barely, but many others have already been driven out of business, while the trustee just merrily prances around pissing away our money. I hope he is enjoying his tea every day. His argument that since the case is based on fraud they want to make sure they don't give someone money who does not deserve it is absurd. When was the last time any commodities firm mistakenly made an error to the positive on a statement balance? I have traded for almost 30 years and never had that happen even once. For him to argue that they have to spend millions of our money making sure something that is almost unprecedented, did not happen, should be illegal.

On a positive front, I did find the solution for getting funds covered by insurance, and it is a really great one.

TD AMERITRADE

Joe, if you are reading this post, thank you. I also think there was another comment or two about this in the blog, and I don't recall who made them. You mentioned this to me a while ago, and I did nothing with it, but finally decided to check into it. TD has a daily sweep into an FDIC insured account of any excess margin, which would then be insured up to 250k. They have two such options, so that allows basically up to 500k per account, that could be covered. Open positions are not covered in this fashion, so any margin there would be segregated and subject to theft. With large account balances I trade way under margin, so in this case had I had my money at TD, the over 500k amount would be all that would have been lost. I was flat when this went down, so I would have only lost the amount I had in excess of 500k, which is a hit I could live with.

This is just tremendous news, and really lifted my spirits yesterday after I left their office having conference called with their people in Chicago. I did ask for it in writing and they are working on that, but it actually is right in the account application documents. I also think from talking to them, their Sink or Swim platform is pretty good. I have yet to try it, but I will put up with it no matter how it is, for the safety that is available here. Of course as well all have learned, seg money is just a sitting duck to be stolen, but here we have some back stopping of things due to this being a bank.

Yee Ha, this takes a load of my mind because it has really been nagging me knowing that there are other seg thefts clearly going on that have not been discovered yet. It is my belief that just like MF Global, daily usage of Segregated money for company business, especially with firms that do prop trading, routinely goes on. It is tough to plan a business knowing you are hoping just by random chance you can luckily move your money around right before someone else steals it. That is not much of a business plan.

Now to some market talk.

I would normally say the Gold market here was more of a sell setup than a buy, NORMALLY. The reason why I don't think it is now is that this market like the stock market, is being manipulated by governments to rise. At some point even though I do not like that, I have to accept that it is what it is. I discussed often that recent support level and how important it was. Now that it has clearly held and we are flying higher, even though I see the COT data shows heavy small spec buying, and an overly bullish sentiment, I think that can be ignored. Since stocks and GOLD are so closely tied together now, and the stock market is in full bull mode, I see no reason to be bearish on Gold.

One of the reasons that I like the COT data, is that it gives hard fundamental information to look at. However, what I don't like about it is a couple of things. First, I think some groups are getting improperly classified, and as a result, the numbers are not as reliable as they used to be. Second, even if they are accurate, they are not great for short term trading, which is what I focus on. The purpose of showing this chart is to illustrate an instance where I think COT should be ignored. We have a buy the pull back situation here in my view at this point.

You can see how well the entries on pullbacks where my bands are work. I have several labeled with just one being lousy, the last one. What this calls for now is a pullback to the green band for long entries. It currently calls for about 1360ish. This will rise as price does, or goes sideways. The bottom line is that I am looking to buy a pullback, hopefully a steep one that gets every one scared. Will we get it? Who knows, but I have a plan if we do. I do not see anything in the COT data here that tells me anything. There is selling going on in the Proxy and regular Commercial position, but when that happens against the trend I ignore it.

For the most part we have up trends everywhere and it is buy the pullbacks, with exceptions being Coffee and Sugar, and I might have left a few others out.

Enjoy the weekend