77tony

8:00-8:30 CST. On CNBCHD now. Direct TV channel 355 if you have not seen it. T

Randy V

enzo

IBTM

SeanR

IBTOWSPSB (In Before The Occupy Wall Street People Start Bitching)

linderpat

Amazing that cnbc can turn something as honorable as making a profit into a sinister story line. What a bunch of asshats.

dr bob

This story is a few years old. From the way it is portrayed, Porsche came out way ahead. There's casual mention of Porsche boardmembers resigning, but no mention of the reasons. Fast-forward some, and find that Porsche was leveraging their VW position heavily, and was caught between a rock and a hard place when they had to pay up. They ended up being absorbed into Volkswagen rather than the other way around. The TV show barely touched on the long-term feuding going on between the various family members, and the idea that a whole lot of non-voting shareholders were rollercoastered more than a bit as the bickering and competition came to the surface.

I think the CNBC greed piece is a good illustration of how a small but heavily-levereged position can artificially manipulate the price of a particular small class of stock. It's also a lesson in how hedge funds can do the same, betting on company losses and then making that come true not just for their own shares but for all others who weren't holding short positions. It appeared that hedge fund members took the brunt of the losses, but ultimately the losses were incurred by all classes of owners of non-publicly-traded Porsche stock.