I came home from the flea market today (empty handed as far as chips were concerned) to find a letter from the NY attorney general. Inside was a very complicated letter about some stock inequities that led to a lawsuit. Between 1998 and 2003 (actually long before and ever since also) Bear Stearns and Scudder Funds had their NYSE specialists trade for their own accounts ahead of individual traders. Imagine that! Knowing that a stock will go up (because of a large influx of orders) the specialists traded for their own accounts then executed orders for others. There sure are advantages of trading NASDAQ stocks using only computers. In any case they, of course, denied any wrongdoing but agreed to pay $102 million anyway. Inside my envelope was a check for $3700. Nice surprise!!