"Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”  ~ Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

How to make money in this market? It's easier if you start with some...

Wolf Richter of testosteronepit was told by a wealth manager that his elderly clients are tired of their low interest CDs and Treasuries. Instead, the clients want to make 25% a year with stocks--as their kids told them they could. 

They want "some stuff like that." Of course, their risk tolerance is essentially zero. This is probably not a good sign. 

"They wanted a risk-free 25% return, something that’s readily available nowadays in the stock market, no problem. The S&P is scheduled to hit that point over the next few days. With two month left to go in the year, its gains will certainly exceed 30%. Stocks are no longer at risk of even a mild downdraft. Certainly not of a serious correction. Those belong to the past. They’ve been going up relentlessly, independent of corporate fundamentals or economic data, both of which have been dreary recently."

Keep reading Current Markets A Wealth Manager's Nightmare.

The Justice Department and Steve Cohen of SAC Capital have come to an agreement after the fund had been charged with insider trading. 

At Business Insider, Julia La Roche and Linette Lopez write about The Rise And Fall Of Steve Cohen:

The fund had been charged with insider trading, and in order to settle those charges, it admitted guilt, agreed to pay a $1.8 billion fine, and return all money belonging to outside investors.

In short, the storied hedge fund would shut down, leaving CEO Steve Cohen — known for being one of the most successful traders on Wall Street — with a $9 billion family office... and an ongoing SEC investigation into his own trading.

Cohen began his Stamford-headquartered hedge fund in 1992 with only $25 million, and came into prominence for his grand slam returns. In its better days, SAC had $14 billion assets under management and employees around 900 people globally. 

Then things turned very sour, as accusations of insider trading started to plague the firm and its subsidiary hedge funds.

Continue: The Rise And Fall Of Steve Cohen

Is there any such thing as "too good to be true" on Wall Street? No, because when one pathway to exploit a system fails, another one is created to take its place. Kind of like the bacteria vs. antibiotics story.

In How to Make Money for Nothing Like Wall Street, Matthew O'Brien explains one way to have a lot of money to use to make more money. Most of us will never be able to apply this technique. 

Credit default swaps [CDS] might not be financial WMDs anymore, but Wall Street can still game them to make guaranteed profits.

[...]

CDS are more transparent, and it's harder to sell them if you can't afford to pay them.

But even with these financial shock absorbers, there are still lots of clever-and-probably-legal-but-ethically-dubious ways to game CDS. Here are the two most devious.

1. Buy CDS on a bond, and then bribe the borrower to temporarily default. This is like taking out insurance on your neighbor's car and bribing him to get in an accident. You get the insurance, and then you kick some money back to him to upgrade his car.

Sound far-fetched? It's not. It's essentially what a unit of the Blackstone Group did with the Spanish gaming operator, Codere SA.

[...] 

2. Sell so many CDS on a bond that you can pay to keep it from defaulting. This is like selling insurance to as many people as possible on a car that was obviously falling apart — and then paying to fix it before it could get in an accident.

Full article: How to Make Money for Nothing Like Wall Street

Obama's in hot water again as he denies videotaped "you can keep it" promises. Neil Munro at The Daily Caller writes:

President Barack Obama told his enthusiastic supporters Monday night that he never promised what video recordings show him promising at least 29 times.

The videos show Obama promising 300 million Americans that “if you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan, period.”

But that’s not what he really said, Obama announced Monday in a speech to about 200 Organizing for Action supporters, gathered at the St. Regis hotel in D.C.

“What we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed,” he told Obamacare’s political beneficiaries and contractors.

That claim is not supported by his videotaped statements, which don’t include any mention of his new “if it hasn’t changed” exception.

Keep reading Obama denies videotaped "you can keep it" promises | The Daily Caller.

Can Obama's bait-and-switch tactic be related to his falling approval rating? BRETT LOGIURATO at Business Insider reports that Obama's Approval Rating Has Dipped Into Dangerously Low Territory:

President Barack Obama's approval rating has dipped a point to 39%, according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll — dangerous waters for a president still in the first year of his second term. 

The 39% mark is a point lower in Gallup's three-day rolling average. Obama's disapproval held steady at 53%. 

Continue: Obama's Approval Rating Has Dipped Into Dangerously Low Territory

Jim Edwards presents The Evidence That The Tech Sector Is In A Massive Bubble. He argues that we're headed for a crash. "When interest is at zero, virtually any other kind of investment is likely to pay more because the risk-free alternative is so lousy. So investment asset bubbles get created. Stocks tend to go up." 

No one is likely to argue that stocks aren't benefitting from the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP), and Edwards makes a strong case that certain tech stocks are in bubblicious territory, his conclusion that we're due for a downturn is up for debate.