Time-traveller arrested for insider trading

HVD · March 29, 2003, 11:43pm

Not sure whether to put this in Science or here…

From tv.yahoo.com/news/wwn/20030319/104808600007.html

‘TIME-TRAVELER’ BUSTED FOR INSIDER TRADING
Wednesday March 19, 2003

By CHAD KULTGEN

NEW YORK – Federal investigators have arrested an enigmatic Wall Street wiz on insider-trading charges – and incredibly, he claims to be a time-traveler from the year 2256!

Sources at the Security and Exchange Commission confirm that 44-year-old Andrew Carlssin offered the bizarre explanation for his uncanny success in the stock market after being led off in handcuffs on January 28.

“We don’t believe this guy’s story – he’s either a lunatic or a pathological liar,” says an SEC insider.

"But the fact is, with an initial investment of only $800, in two weeks’ time he had a portfolio valued at over $350 million. Every trade he made capitalized on unexpected business developments, which simply can’t be pure luck.

“The only way he could pull it off is with illegal inside information. He’s going to sit in a jail cell on Rikers Island until he agrees to give up his sources.”

The past year of nose-diving stock prices has left most investors crying in their beer. So when Carlssin made a flurry of 126 high-risk trades and came out the winner every time, it raised the eyebrows of Wall Street watchdogs.

“If a company’s stock rose due to a merger or technological breakthrough that was supposed to be secret, Mr. Carlssin somehow knew about it in advance,” says the SEC source close to the hush-hush, ongoing investigation.

When investigators hauled Carlssin in for questioning, they got more than they bargained for: A mind-boggling four-hour confession.

Carlssin declared that he had traveled back in time from over 200 years in the future, when it is common knowledge that our era experienced one of the worst stock plunges in history. Yet anyone armed with knowledge of the handful of stocks destined to go through the roof could make a fortune.

“It was just too tempting to resist,” Carlssin allegedly said in his videotaped confession. “I had planned to make it look natural, you know, lose a little here and there so it doesn’t look too perfect. But I just got caught in the moment.”

In a bid for leniency, Carlssin has reportedly offered to divulge “historical facts” such as the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden and a cure for AIDS.

All he wants is to be allowed to return to the future in his “time craft.”

However, he refuses to reveal the location of the machine or discuss how it works, supposedly out of fear the technology could “fall into the wrong hands.”

Officials are quite confident the “time-traveler’s” claims are bogus. Yet the SEC source admits, “No one can find any record of any Andrew Carlssin existing anywhere before December 2002.”

It’s a little close to april folls’ for my liking, and there are many other, more likely explanations for his success ( i dont know any off the top of my head, but there must be some)

But if it’s true, hey, it could be a momentous event, unless “they” lock him up in Area 51 or something.

jedi_pocky · March 30, 2003, 10:29am

whoaa… what i wanna know is how the world would look like in 2256…

Matthew_E · March 30, 2003, 1:13pm

As much as I’d like to believe this story, I suspect it is a tabloid. The article would be in the business section of the news, not the “Entertainmnet and Gossip” section if it were true. I hope I am wrong, and we get a cure for AIDS. At least mankind isn’t blown to hell in the next 200 years.

ed1 · March 30, 2003, 10:36pm

its weird were never gonna live to see 2056 so well never know if he was telling the truth

silver · April 1, 2003, 12:12am

dang it!

Kajun · April 1, 2003, 12:06pm

Hey, check out this fabulous website too! Darn blasted I’m gonna remortgage my house for it!

The above story was brought to you by … The Weekly World News. Whether you believe it or not is probably a matter of how finely attuned you are to good/bad website design.

Matthew_E · April 1, 2003, 4:01pm

Kajun-
Getting people to invest into a time-travellers fund is the most genius idea I have ever seen. I almost want to give then ten dollars on pure principle alone. Hilarious.

Matt · April 18, 2003, 9:42pm

The time traveller story is definatly a bogus, I checked it out when I got an email with the same story about a month ago, not a single mention in any serious New York paper, which would have jumped on a story like that for human interest. Anyway, an insider trading case would definatly be discussed in the business section of broadsheets.

Also check out the rest of the yahoo WWN site, there’s loads of crazy stories on there. I’m sure some of you realised it was a joke, but some of you did seem to be vaguely buying it.

The time travle fund is amazing. At least it’s not as much of as a con as buying plots on the moon.

Skeptic · April 18, 2003, 11:57pm

I’ve got Lot L19(ocean front property, too!) and D34(where I plan to build my retirement home). They keep telling me that, any day now, I will be able to start building.