Cramer: Lebed's Fraud

N E W   Y O R K, March 5 -- The Feds got sandbagged big time in that New York Times Sunday magazine cover story on Jonathan Lebed, the teenage day-trader who got nabbed by the Securities and Exchange Commission for pumping and dumping.

If you didn't read it, a quick summary of the story is in order. Michael Lewis, of Liar's Poker fame, wrote a viciously cynical piece that argued that, because Mary Meeker and Henry Blodget and everybody else were so wrong about stocks but made a fortune, why can't Jonathan Lebed, who made money for people, get away with writing what he wants about stocks and make a fortune, even if it turned out not to be true.

In other words, why can't Lebed have the freedom to do whatever the heck he wants and why are the Feds picking on him?

The subtext was even worse: The Feds knew they had a bad case and they didn't even coordinate it. Lewis implied that aging Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt didn't know what the heck was going on, and when asked about it, he made stuff up.

Predicted Stuff He Didn’t Know

OK, you may have read it as less damning for the Feds and more positive about Lebed. I know you couldn't have read it as that the Feds did their job and that Lebed was a bad pump-and-dumper. Yet that's what really happened. Jonathan Lebed bought stocks, went on message boards, predicted stuff he didn't know and blew the stocks out into his predictions.

Henry Blodget at Merrill Lynch went out to his sales force and predicted stuff he didn't know and some of it happened and some of it didn't. In Lewis' opinion, the Feds would have done better going after Blodget. Or shutting up entirely.

I don't live in Lewis' world. I live in a world where people pump and dump all of the time. I live in a world where I have been investigated by the Feds for pumping and dumping and I never even dumped! And the Feds were right to investigate.

Let's understand why the Feds exist. First, nobody disputes the right of people to say whatever the heck they want. That's because of the First Amendment. But you also can't dispute the right of the Feds to regulate in order to protect other interests, notably the right for people to buy and sell stocks without being scammed.