SEC Informs State Street It Will Authorize Civil Enforcement Action For Violation Of Anti-Fraud Provisions

In June 2009, the Staff of the SEC provided State Street Bank with a “Wells” notice related to the SEC’s ongoing investigation into disclosures and management by SSgA of its active fixed-income strategies during 2007 and prior periods. The SEC Staff has informed us that it is proceeding with an enforcement recommendation to the SEC Commissioners asking the SEC Commissioners to authorize a civil enforcement action against us alleging violations of antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws.

Cliff Asness Takes On flag@whitehouse.com And The Orwellian Totallitarian Watch-List

Dear Leader and Minions,

The only thing more un-American, anti-freedom, and hypocritical from this administration, that dared to campaign on the prior administration's respect of the constitution, than your attempt to socialize vast swaths of the American economy, is your new attempt to silence your legitimate critics. You have (collectively with your party) called them Nazis, you have lied about their generally peaceful demonstrations while ignoring the incredible hypocrisy of your own brown-shirt like efforts (New Black panther thugs let off the hook by Holder, Code Pink, SEIU and ACORN vigorously disrupting free speech; and just try to give a speech offending the Left on our academically "free" campuses?). Now this explicit effort to have Americans, who happen to disagree with the current people in charge, inform on other Americans to this email address. You all have no shame.

Sergey Aleynikov Strikes Back, Files Goldman Subpoena

Sergey's alleged Goldman code-theft case, which seemed to be on the fast track to being promptly settled out of court, just took an odd turn. Matt Goldstein over at Reuters reports that instead of keeping quiet, Sergey has taken the offensive and has filed a subpoena on Goldman Sachs, "seeking access to some information." Goldman's response is a not very surprising motion in federal court to quash the subpoena. Either this is a red herring by Sergey, trying to make his plea deal case stronger, or there is indeed something in Goldman's books that needs further observation, and would, presumably, shed much needed light on either the Aleynikov affair, HFT, or both.

Guest Post: Dear Goldman Clients

"The games are over and as people around the country are uniting, the likes of which this country has not seen in 200 years, I can assure you change is indeed coming. It is time to demand accountability from those running your funds. This has gone on far too long and is totally out of control."

Meet Richard Bernstein's Jolly And Much More Optimistic Replacement David Bianco

With normalized cover page headlines like these:

• Robust S&P 500 EPS growth expected for 2010 and 2011
• S&P 500 EPS recovery to outpace the US GDP recovery
• Financials to contribute to EPS growth in 2010 and 2011
• Normalized S&P 500 EPS is above our 2009E and 2010E EPS
• Our normalized EPS supports a strategically bullish stance

is there any wonder how happy Bernstein and Rosenberg must have been to go to work every day?

Liquidity Provider Van der Moolen Files Bankruptcy Due To Lack Of Liquidity

In a sign of HFT's encroaching dominance in the market, and the changing equity market liquidity provisioning landscape, Dutch specialist firm Van Der Moolen earlier filed for protection from creditors, the European equivalent of a chapter 11 filing. As expected, the monopoly of the "very few" is starting to eat the peripheral players.