Thursday, May 23, 2013

Attention Commodities Speculators: Hoarding is Now a Stand-alone Mental Disorder

So if you think you are going to do a little run-and-gun* you just might be looking at an involuntary commitment, which seems a dastardly way to break a corner (although not as dastardly has having the exchange go "liquidation only").
From Yahoo News:

Hoarding disorder gets spotlight in DSM-5
Regular viewers of reality shows about hoarding are used to being stunned by someone's clutter. But behind the sensationalistic stories of rooms buried in trash, kitchens filled with rotting food, and yards overrun by goats are people suffering from a serious mental illness –hoarding–that for many years was misdiagnosed.

The upcoming fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) aims to change that. The highly influential DSM-5 will classify hoarding as a distinct disorder within the chapter about obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. Before the DSM-5, hoarding could be misdiagnosed as a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder....MORE
*See also:
The Golden Age of Commodities Market Manipulation: Corners, Storage and Squeezes

Even if committed all is not lost on the manipulation front.

If you get phone privileges while in hospital remember this enterprising fellow who called up the DJ newswire and gave them the scoop:
New York Times, June 24, 1987:

A bogus takeover offer for the Dayton Hudson Corporation caused the retailer's stock to shoot up $9 a share yesterday, but skepticism quickly deflated the gain, inflicting a $15 million loss on investors.The chain of events began yesterday morning with a telephone call from a Cincinnati securities analyst, Paul David Herrlinger, to the Dow Jones News Service, in which the offer was made on behalf of ''Stone Inc.'' It ended five hours later with an announcement by the Herrlinger family's attorney that ''this was not a bona fide offer and there is no such company as Stone Inc.'' He said Mr. Herrlinger had a nervous condition and had apparently been hospitalized.
In the interim, 5.2 million shares of Dayton Hudson's common stock changed hands, much of it in the early afternoon, before the credibility of the $70-a-share offer was shattered. Rumors of a Takeover Bid
At 9:49 in the morning, 19 minutes after the New York Stock Exchange opened, the Dow Jones ticker printed its first story on the purported offer. At 9:53 A.M., the New York Stock Exchange halted trading in Dayton Hudson stock to allow the news to be disseminated....MORE