Barack "Ozymandias" Obama, Capitalist Genius

Nearly as smart as Hillary.

One problem with this report: It doesn't say how much stock Obama actually bought. If it were a small amount, it's hard to make the case he was trading with information gained as a Senatorial insider.

The article's focus on percent profit rather than gross profit makes me think it wasn't a lot of stock.

Still, I'd like to know for certain.

Thanks to Arthur.

$5,000 on AVI Biopharma, and Another $50,000 on Another Insidery Company That's a lot of stock.

Numbers above corrected.

More: The predictable NYT whitewash.

Something Here? Tipped to me as the best recap by, um, "Assman."

Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world.

Public filings show that Obama bought somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of Skyterra shares in February 2005. Burton says there was a mistake made on the senator's disclosure form and that he actually invested between $50,000 and $100,000 in shares of Skyterra. The discrepancy is in the process of being corrected.

Alas, he does not seem to have made money on that one -- lost $15,000 or so.

On the other hand, there's AVI Biopharma.

OMB Watch reports that AVI received $164,078 in 2004 for research grants. In the first three quarters of 2005, the year that Obama made his trades in the stock, that amount increased nearly three times to $471,696.

...

Burton says the Senator recorded a profit of roughly $2,000 on the trade, leaving him in the red for his stock trading in 2005 by $13,000.

Not a lot of money. It's still quite possible he was making these trades based on insider tips -- tips, in the case of Skyterra, that didn't pan out. But it looks difficult to prove.

Seems like a dry hole.

posted by Ace at 04:53 PM

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