I can't read it, because it would contain spoilers for me. My plan is I'll catch up to 'Downton' when the other shows I'm involved with hit their series finales. That way, as soon as The Yankees suffer injuries in April (Mark Teixeria, for sure) and the pitching staff and bullpen go kaplooey, I'll have something saved for those spring and summer days when listening to Keith Hernandez is not an option.
It finally hit me where I'd been seeing the name Andrew Ross Sorkin before, whose names is listed third in the credits as a co-creator for 'Billions.' He's a financial reporter for the NYT and someone who I occasionally read. He knows a good deal about the subject. We already know how the conceit of 'Billions' is about Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern district of New York. Mr. Bharara is a badass on white collar, insider trading crime. His office does have a significant number of wins. He's the office version of what Robert D. McFadden recently wrote about the actor George Kennedy, who just passed away at 91, and the characters he played: you'd be foolish to mess with him.
So, I just finished Episode 4 of 'Billions.' It had its usual sprinkling of the word fuck uttered by several characters, but had no sex. It was lesson in finance. Selling short, even with inside information at your finger tips.
It was a primer of how the big boys play. What can eventually get them in the newspapers and giving statements on the court house steps. The episode was also an MTV video for the band "Mettalica,' whose only North American concert in Quebec, Canada, Bobby flew himself and three other buddies to in his private jet. Only two buddies get to come home on the jet however, with the one being taught a lesson in loyalty and disclosure. Coming from Bobby, who else?
Short selling is a concept of selling something you don't have. If that sounds impossible, it probably should be, but someone, perhaps JFK's father Joseph P. Kennedy made it an art form, and a way to amass money, when things go your way.
Bobby pretty much tells his buddies what a short-sell is. You pick a stock that you think is going to go down at the price it is when you pick it. Go down significantly. Right now there is a three day window to cover the sale. To close. That is, provide the actual shares to the person you sold something to you don't have.
When I worked on Wall Street as a clerk, nearly 50 years ago, the window for settlement was five days. Thus, you had a business-week's worth of time to hope the stock would lower itself to a level that you would then buy the shares needed to cover at this now significantly depressed price from when you first bought the shares.
In the era I worked, Wall Street was a vast paper exchange. There were computers, but actual engraved, physical stock certificates were always being moved about between firms and stockholders. There was no electronic bookkeeping. The "cage" area was a somewhat restricted area where these shares were literally piled up. It was a mess. Often times, no one could find the shares, or, they delivered the wrong ones because the names of the company were similar, or there was only a small difference in designations between the shares: Class A, Class B, things like that.
Runners, or old-retired guys, sometimes former law enforcement, were constantly delivering these physical certificates back and forth. At the close of the window, three days, or five, the shares had to be placed with the buyer, otherwise the seller was whacked by the trading firm with exorbitant interest, or worse, banned from doing this again with the trader.
Electronic bookkeeping created the vast trading volumes there are today. Old guys and near-sighted cage clerks would not be able to keep up.
So, what happens in Episode 4 is really a lesson in the short squeeze. Bobby gets his nuts in a vice because the stock he picks to tank and replace with shares that cost them less than what he paid for, starts to go up. And not just up a little. Up a lot. FAST. Bobby doesn't get to enjoy the concert too much,
And how does Bobby get it so wrong that the stock goes up instead of down. Chuck's dad is an old-time trader, or whale himself. He plants information that makes the stock go up, after taking his own position, long--actually holding the stock.
The whole episode is so much about finance and stock that Chuck Jr, the U. S. Attorney, gets to keep his clothes on all the time. Paul Giamatti is gem being cast as the U.S. attorney. Chuck Jr. has to get dad off his plan, and makes him take a significant loss. Bobby ducks the bullet by borrowing someone's position on the stock to avoid the margin call. Then the news that Bobby knows about becomes public, and the stock starts to tank, going down faster than a plane with no engine. Bobby comes out ahead, way ahead, financially.
But what is this game all about? Bobby's head gets turned around by the female singer of a backup band who he doesn't have sex with. It's hard, because she's so hot-to-trot you can almost see her clothes come off, even though they stay on. No, Bobby stays true to Lara, is wife, and wins points from the seductress.
But Bobby's a changed man, and gets back to the office and starts to sell-off his positions. But this isn't really Scrooge seeing ghosts, or is it? It's more like Sean Connery in the 'Hunt for Red October'dueling with the other submarine captains with torpedoes. Somebody won't do something like that again.
There are more episode to catch up on.
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