CHRISTOPHER COX! DO YOUR ***DAMN JOB!

So today we get more rumors that various firms are "going to buy" Lehman.

After the bell, the claim is that Mitsubishi Financial (Japan) is interested in a bid - supposedly from The Times of London.

Guess what? Its a lie - AGAIN:

"MUFG has "absolutely no plans" to invest in Lehman, an executive involved in major decisions at the bank told Reuters."

This has gone on long enough. We have now had literally a full week of every single day rumors being started about Lehman being bought by this or that foreign entity.

When people were claiming Fannie and Freddie, along with others, were going bankrupt tomorrow, Chris Cox stepped in and banned "naked short selling" in a fashion that effectively prevented all short sales of a handful of stocks due to the interaction of those "new rules" with brokerage back-office systems, kicking off an insane short-covering rally that lifted the XLF by nearly 20% in two days.

Now we have a clear case of repeated, intentional and felonious market manipulation that has and will continue to cost investors millions of dollars and Chris Cox and the SEC sit on their hands and masturbate because this time, the rumor is making the stock price go up instead of down.

Yet the market is a zero-sum game.

For each person who profits by such a rumor, whether it moves the price up or down, someone gets screwed in an exactly equal amount due to the intentional manipulation.

This blatantly felonious activity must stop and if The Republican Party intends to get my, or other free market advocate's votes, the existing Republican adminstration, including Chris Cox at the SEC, must put a stop to this crap right now!

Since these rumors appear to be originating outside of the United States and thus outside of the reach of the SEC (or is it? Didn't they manage to seize a Hong Kong couples' account a year or so back?) the solution is to freeze all trading in the names of firms subject to these rumors IMMEDIATELY when they start to hit the tape until a written confirmation or denial, under penalty of perjury, is issued by the firm who is subject thereof.

End of problem.

If there is a legitimate transaction in process this protects the acquiring company by stopping the insane price run-ups that accompany these rumors, many of which may be started by people intending to derail the talks by raising the price beyond the firm's original acquisition cost.

But if these rumors are intended to screw people - that is, if there is a hedge fund or money manager, for example, that is trapped in a severely underwater position who starts such a rumor to be able to exit without taking their loss, then freezing trading until the company issues an official statement on the matter prevents them from profiting from their felony.

Either way, the market wins and the fraudsters lose.

Do your ***damn job Chris.