Chipotle is a victim of biotech industry food terrorists planting e.coli to retaliate for their anti-GMO menu

[Hyperthetic]

Originally Posted by Wartrace

CMG options have a daily volume of 14,500 contracts traded. A 1000 contract position wouldn't be noticed particularly if you accumulated it over a series of strike prices and different days. You could probably have loaded up on 5 to 10k contracts using multiple accounts and not be noticed. 10k contracts would be 200,000,000 dollars.

Hogs get fat, pigs get slaughtered.

Or vice versa.

[Wartrace]

Originally Posted by Hyperthetic

Hogs get fat, pigs get slaughtered.

Or vice versa.

Maybe 10k contracts would have been a stretch but 2 or 3k contracts would have not been noticed. The guy could have even put a collar trade on (Buying both puts and calls) knowing full well he would lose a little bit on the calls but look VERY normal to regulators at the SEC (if the regulators stopped looking at porn videos long enough to even bother looking).

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by Wartrace

CMG options have a daily volume of 14,500 contracts traded. A 1000 contract position wouldn't be noticed particularly if you accumulated it over a series of strike prices and different days. You could probably have loaded up on 5 to 10k contracts using multiple accounts and not be noticed. 10k contracts would be 200,000,000 dollars.

First off, great post...you put things into perspective.

I think you've convinced me that it could be done and would be unlikely to be spotted if the person did it subtly.

Thanks for the info.

[uggabugga]

ruh roh.

Chipotle subpoenaed as part of investigation; sales plunge - WTOP

[Rescue3]

Originally Posted by uggabugga

ruh roh.

Chipotle subpoenaed as part of investigation; sales plunge - WTOP

This is the opening act of a squeeze by DOJ/CPB, who will try to show that Chipotle did something wrong at the Simi Valley restaurant that caused a food that had travelled in interstate commerce to become adulterated. Then they will try to 'settle' for several million dollars in fines and forfeitures. They did the same thing to a juice company in Sacramento a couple decades ago (but that company was seriously deficient in their manufacturing proceses, and lots of children got very sick).

The trouble is with this case is that norovirus is usually introduced to a restaurant (or cruise ship or nursing home or school cafeteria) by the customer - or an employee who has contracted the virus but isn't yet symptomatic. That's going to be very difficult for the government to prove the element of the offense that the company did something that specifically allowed a highly transmissible virus, which is ubiquitous in the community, to adulterate their food.

Not the course I would have advocated. Even though it is a strict liability misdemeanor, CPB would have been smarter going after the e-coli restaurants. The customer doesn't bring e-coli to a restaurant they way they bring norovirus in.

Will be interesting to see if Chipotle was grossly deficient in their HACCP or sanitation operations. And if they were, why didn't the local health departments get involved sooner...?