Short Interests: Playing Trump card an expensive game

Getting a stock touted isn’t cheap. The Contrarian, an e-mail service, charges $15,000.

In an electronic note last month, the Contrarian said it was “excited about buying opportunities” and debuting its “first-ever Nasdaq-listed stock, Financial Performance Corp.”

The reason for its ardor? “The catalyst for our recommendation is the news released on Jan. 16 that [Financial Performance Corp.] has acquired Willey Brothers Inc., a sophisticated financial services firm.”

The Contrarian also dangles a regal name before potential investors. “The Trump family,” the note states, “known as smart investors, are among the inside holders as well.”

It continues to say that insiders on Wall Street are buying stock and exercising stock options, “buying at prices as high as $10.40 this past year.”

Financial Performance was trading at $3.06 Friday afternoon.

At least investors don’t have to bother reading the Contrarian’s fine print. In the final paragraph, the note states, “The publisher of the Contrarian has received a fee of $15,000 from the subject company for the development and circulation of this report.”

Jeffrey Silverman, chairman and CEO of New York-based Financial Performance, says that he wants to tell his company’s story.

“It’s one method of public relations,” he adds.

An early bird

flies the coop

At TD Waterhouse Group Inc.’s San Diego conference, the brokerage’s vice president of institutional business development was scheduled to make a presentation at 7: 45 a.m. Friday but was nowhere to be found. The executive, Don Cody, apparently was recruited by Scudder Wiesel in San Diego as Southwest regional sales director.

Cyberbrokers

still bullish

The executives at some of the embattled online brokerage houses are keeping the faith even if their investor bases are wavering, Gregory Smith, an analyst with Chase H&Q of San Francisco, writes in a recent research note. The most recent Securities and Exchange Commission filings reveal that investors at New York-based A.B. Watley, including company president Anthony Huston, vice president Eric Steinberg and one 10% owner, made insider purchases in December. That follows a pattern from those individuals and other company insiders that began in August. “The insider-trading activity at many online brokerage firms has been negligible,” Mr. Smith writes. “We view the recent acceleration in insider buying as anecdotal support to our bullish arguments for the group.” Insiders have also been making purchases of late at Omaha, Neb.-based Ameritrade Holding Corp., TD Waterhouse Group Inc. of New York and Deerfield, Ill.-based Web Street Securities.

Borrowed time?

Nationwide lenders would like Dubya to take a closer look at the slowing economy. A study conducted by Phoenix Management Services found that lenders would like President Bush to make an economic turndown a top priority.

“Even when presented with the choice of pushing the cherished, quick-start Viagra of a tax cut, lenders are responding with a resounding plea to pay broader attention to a slipping economy,” says E. Talbot Briddell, president of the Philadelphia firm.

Those who participated in the survey were asked how the president should prioritize Social Security, tax relief, a possible economic downturn, international affairs and building a bipartisan coalition.

To 72% of the 82 lenders surveyed, concerns over a slowing economy ranked as the top or second-most-important issue.