As we approach the Super Bowl, if you were to ask this guy who he thought was going to win the game, would you really expect an objective answer? Of course not. He's obviously biased. The same bias can easily be seen in the news on ABK and MBI today, but investors don't seem to care.
CNBC just reported that short seller Bill Ackman, who has stated several times that he is short and bearish on these names, wrote a letter to the NY State Insurance Commisioner saying that the problems at MBI and ABK are much worse than generally thought. As a result both stocks have declined by over 10% in short order.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for acknowledging this! Incredibly, not one other financial website or publication that I know of has stated the obvious about Ackman's announcements! They just regurgitate Ackman's statements like they are unbiased fact. I don't own MBIA or AMBAC (and they are obviously a mess) so I don't have a direct stake in their fate but the financial press and the media in general are getting played like a violin on this story (and others).
Posted by: DF | February 03, 2008 at 05:59 PM