{"id":1268,"date":"2008-02-19T03:00:31","date_gmt":"2008-02-19T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sequence-inc.com\/fraudfiles\/2008\/02\/19\/sam-antars-advice-to-investors\/"},"modified":"2013-02-02T17:42:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T23:42:27","slug":"sam-antars-advice-to-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/sam-antars-advice-to-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Antar&#8217;s Advice to Investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent article in Fortune Magazine <a href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2007\/12\/21\/news\/newsmakers\/antar.fortune\/index.htm?postversion=2007122509\">about felon turned fraudfighter Sam E. Antar<\/a>&#8230;. Sam gave the following tips to investors about looking for fraud in public companies. I think it&#8217;s sound advice!<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>INVESTOR BEWARE<br \/>\nSam E.&#8217;s five rules for spotting potential fraud in public companies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Study SEC filings yourself.<br \/>\n<\/strong>External auditors, audit committees, and Wall Street analysts cannot protect you from most fraud. Analysts often do not ask the important questions and are too quick to accept management&#8217;s representations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read the footnotes first.<br \/>\n<\/strong>Tiny things can be huge. In the Crazy Eddie fraud, the change of a single word (from &#8220;purchase discounts and trade allowances are recognized when received&#8221; to &#8220;recognized when earned&#8221;) allowed Sam E. to inflate the company&#8217;s earnings in fiscal year 1987 by about $20 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Watch for inconsistencies.<br \/>\n<\/strong>If the CEO tells the press, &#8220;We are profitable,&#8221; make sure the figures in the 10-Q back up the statement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Always crosscheck disclosures.<br \/>\n<\/strong>Compare Management Discussion &amp; Analysis in the current report with MD&amp;A sections in past 10-Qs. Look for any changes in disclosure language.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sound like too much work?<br \/>\n<\/strong>If you don&#8217;t have the time or expertise to do the above, don&#8217;t buy individual stocks. Stick with index funds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a recent article in Fortune Magazine about felon turned fraudfighter Sam E. Antar&#8230;. Sam gave the following tips to investors about looking for fraud in public companies. I think it&#8217;s sound advice!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[823],"tags":[987,1578],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-white-collar-crime","tag-sam-antar","tag-sec-filings"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Z0e-ks","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sequenceinc.com\/fraudfiles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}