David Miller takes the "bite" from Apple

And so yet another saga of a trader who bet on AAPL rising, just before it tumbled, ends in tears, this time with what appears to be near certain incarceration of another small, 2-bit trader. As previously reported, back in November, as AAPL stock was in free-fall, none other than Rochdale Securities ended up being a proud if involuntary holder of nearly $1 billion in AAPL stock. The scapegoat for AAPL's price drop: one ex-trader David Miller. What Miller is accused of, is buying 1.6 million shares of AAPL on the day of the company's last earnings announcement in hopes, of course, the stock would surge. It didn't. Furthermore, Miller was in reality executing a trade for a client who had only wanted to buy 1,625 shares, but Miller was confident enough the stock would go up, he bet the firm's money to buy the difference. Sadly, neither the AAPL earnings announcement, nor its stock price, did quite as planned. End result: $5 million loss, Miller terminated and now arrested and charged, and Rochdale left scrambling for a bailout.

I guess I´ve been desensitized to amounts of money such as $5 million. When you hear nothing but billions and trillions as the new norm for everything from deficits to debt levels, takeovers to blown IPO´s and of course the famous national debt and the uncovered liabilities, $5 million sounds almost comical.

Meanwhile, Jon Corzine is free and laughing. In this environment I wouldn't be surprised if Obama appointed Corzine as a cabinet member. Turbo Timmy didn't didn't pay SS and Medicare taxes for three years until he got caught. Can't stop having cheats and criminals in charge of US money now can we?