Fast Buck: How Porsche made Billions

dceire

Anyone else watch how Porsche made Billions on BBC tonight at 10pm?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7843262.stm

Over two astonishing days in October 2008 one of the most amazing stories of the downturn emerged. Porsche, the luxury sports car manufacturer, was revealed as the force behind an audacious takeover bid for Volkswagen.

The price of Volkswagen shares rocketed fivefold, and it briefly became the most valuable company on the planet. And hedge funds that had been betting on VW shares falling in the downturn found themselves staring at losses that ran into billions of pounds.

Now the German authorities are investigating. It has been alleged that the much smaller German car maker Porsche manipulated the market, made a fortune and ended up potentially taking over its rival.

Porsche insists it has done nothing wrong. But for years it has quietly stalked its larger rival, buying up VW shares in a creeping takeover and making vast profits in dealings on those shares. It has been highly effective: last year it made four times as much money from share trading than from making its iconic sports cars.

It was quite interesting and would seem to me that Porsche have been incredibly clever with their trading and the hedge fund managers are making their accusations hoping to save some embarrassment.

Dose anyone know where i might be able to watch it online? The BBC iPlayer only allows access from England

MarkN

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055469220

congo_90

Op, If you are using Firefox then go to this link which re-directs your proxy

http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

Supposed to work a charm

pburns

Hopefully it will be repeated on BBC3 or 4 at some stage

Raging I missed it. Saw it in TV listing this evening, completely forgot:(

galwaytt

pity can't get them to take charge of our economy.

Then we'd be saved, and could all buy Porsches.

+1,000,000 to them, I say, and **** the bankers and financiers.

S.I.R

galwaytt wrote: »

pity can't get them to take charge of our economy.

Then we'd be saved, and could all buy Porsches.

+1,000,000 to them, I say, and **** the bankers and financiers.

don't forget property re-developers while your at it...


cause porshe's don't happen to be the poor mans super car, only the some what rich can afford them

tossy

you can watch it on BBC iPlayer,i just did,great little documentary.

whippet

to see hedge fund managers crying foul when they were beaten at their own game was the best part!

There is a reason why short selling has been banned on most large exchanges .. by short selling you are effectively manipulating the markets!!

shrapnel222

whippet wrote: »

to see hedge fund managers crying foul when they were beaten at their own game was the best part!

There is a reason why short selling has been banned on most large exchanges .. by short selling you are effectively manipulating the markets!!

wrong, simply put, markets go up when there are more buyers than sellers, and go down when there are more sellers than buyers, they reach an equilibrium at some stage which is regarded as current market value. selling is an integral part of the markets and banning shortselling is completely wrong imo. banning it is market manipulation and not the other way round

dceire

tossy wrote: »

you can watch it on BBC iPlayer,i just did,great little documentary.

How'd you manage that then? All i get is a screen with:

Currently BBC iPlayer TV programmes are available to play in the UK only, but all BBC iPlayer Radio programmes are available to you. Why?

If you are in the UK and see this message please read this advice.

Go to Radio channels home page

written on it!

whippet

shrapnel222 wrote: »

wrong, simply put, markets go up when there are more buyers than sellers, and go down when there are more sellers than buyers, they reach an equilibrium at some stage which is regarded as current market value. selling is an integral part of the markets and banning shortselling is completely wrong imo. banning it is market manipulation and not the other way round

I am no expert in financial markets, but I would imagine that the whole notion of taking a position with a view / hope / purpose of having that stock value lessen is a manipulation of the market .. ie short selling.

When you short sell, you are selling stock .. releasing more on to the market to drive the price down with the intention of buying back at the cheaper price. This product invite market abuse in my opinion ... it is in the interest of large stake holders (hedge funds) to have the price drop, who will do what then can to drive the price down .. by legal means (or even be tempted via illegal-ish means)

david

Yeah I've actually been following this and to be honest I'm not surprised. Hedgefunding nowadays relies far to heavily on quantitative methods rather than pure common sense. Porsche did nothing wrong but play the market to their advantage. Heck anyone would've bet against Volkswagon AG shares in economic downturn.

It's questionable as to whether or not it was good social practice to increase your companies net worth not by pure innovation/expanding market share but by playing the market. I don't have a problem with it tbh.

P.C.

Don't forget that they managed to buy VW, and make a profit doing it. :cool:

Fairplay to them.

biggest short squeeze in history. didn't see the show but seen the effects on funds in work.

MarkN

2am later tonight BBC1 it's repeated.

mickdw

It was very good. I say good luck to porsche. They played by the rules of the german market so what is the problem. The hedge funds were there just waiting to rake in all the money on the 'sure bet' that was a fall in vw share price. Funny stuff actually. Then they showed interviews with market traders etc going on about how wrong the whole thing was. Porsche made more profit than the whole car business turn over for the year and about 6 times more profit on the markets than on cars. Pretty smart stuff and they now pretty much have control of vw together with all its other brands.

Cionád

congo_90 wrote: »

Op, If you are using Firefox then go to this link which re-directs your proxy

http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org/

Supposed to work a charm

Fantastic plugin, BBC iPlayer works great with it!

+ 1 on what mickdw said.

If you don't want to wait up till 2am, you can download foxyproxy from the link above and then follow the tutorial here

Instead of putting "localhost" as your proxy as shown in the tutorial pick a UK proxy IP & port number from here

Then go to BBC iPlayer, search for Porsche and enjoy!

Cmar-Ireland

Cionád wrote: »

Fantastic plugin, BBC iPlayer works great with it!

+ 1 on what mickdw said.

If you don't want to wait up till 2am, you can download foxyproxy from the link above and then follow the tutorial here

Instead of putting "localhost" as your proxy as shown in the tutorial pick a UK proxy IP & port number from here

Then go to BBC iPlayer, search for Porsche and enjoy!

How do us IE users do that then?

Cionád

Cmar-Ireland wrote: »

How do us IE users do that then?

Drop that Microsoft rubbish and install Firefox