Vale a pena ler o artigo de Ivan Krstic (em Inglês) onde de forma simples e sintética nos conta a hstória da tragédia de Adolf Merckle (o magnata alemão que se suicidou esta semana) e o respectivo reverso da medalhe: a glória da armadilha que a Porsche lançou aos especialistas que ganham a vida a aproveitar as momentaneas “falhas de mercado”: How Porsche hacked the financial system and made a killing.
Dois excertos:
“(…) When Volkswagen’s share price exceeded the point where it made sense for Porsche to buy the company, a number of hedge funds realized that Volkswagen shares have nowhere to go but down. With Porsche out of the picture, there was simply no reason for VW to keep going up, and the funds were willing to bet on it. So they shorted huge amounts of VW stock, borrowing it from existing owners and selling it into circulation, waiting for the price drop they considered inevitable. (…)
But then, last October 26th, they stepped forward and bared their portfolio: through a combination of stock and options, they owned 75% of Volkswagen, which is almost all the company’s circulating stock. (The remainder is tied up in funds that cannot easily release it.)
To put it mildly, the numbers scared the living hell out of the hedge funds: if they didn’t immediately buy back the Volkswagen stock they were shorting, there might not be any left to buy later, and it isn’t their stock — they have to return it to someone. (…)”