Health Management Associates Gets the 60 Minutes Treatment

Are you wondering why the stock of Health Management Associates (HMA) is down today? Well, they got the 60 Minutes treatment. Steve Kroft investigates allegations from doctors that the hospital chain they worked for pressured them to admit patients regardless of their medical needs. The gist of it is they have software they monitors whether or not doctors are giving patients all the procedures possible to maximize their revenue. Plus, if you come into one of their hospitals and happen to be over 65, they will admit you immediately in order to take all your medicare money - essentially that seems

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Tagged 60 minutes, Health Management Associates

Washington Insiders Doing Some Insider Trading

Well, surprise, surprise, what do you know, some members of congress are making some extra money by trading stocks with some very inside and non-public information. And what's crazy is this is legal. Lawmakers can trade on non-public information. Sure, it's unethical, but they're not breaking any law by doing this. It's like the world is upside down. During the healthcare debate they were trading healthcare stocks. During the financial collapse Congressmen Spencer Bachus of Alabama, who sits on a financial committee, was trading stocks after a meeting with Bernanke and Paulson, when the two were saying the world's financial markets

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Tagged 60 minutes, congress, insider trading, Spencer Bachus

60 Minutes: Ruth Madoff Describes Hearing Bernard Confess

As crazy as it may seem, I have to say I believe Ruth and Andrew Madoff when they say they had no idea that Bernie Madoff was running a Ponzi scheme. They certainly should have known, and it's amazing that they didn't ever ask any questions or dig deeper, especially when there were people who suspected that Madoff was running a scheme, but they seem like they are telling the truth. Ruth Madoff tells Morley Safer that after her husband confessed to running a massive Ponzi scheme the couple attended the company Christmas party.

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Tagged 60 minutes, bernie madoff, confession, ruth madoff

High-Frequency Trading

Good piece from 60 Minutes: Steve Kroft gets a rare look inside the secretive world "high-frequency trading," a controversial technique the SEC is scrutinizing in which computers can make thousands of stock trades in less than a second. An amazing stat: 70% of all the trades in the United States are done by high-frequency trades. These are traders who don't care about the companies balance sheet or what they do. They're using statistics and probabilities to make small profits on millions of trades. The valuation of a company is irrelevant. What's more, the May 6th flash crash was

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Tagged 60 minutes, electronic trading, high-frequency trading