Hello Lar (“hoov”),

Your Guess: “Casimir is headquartered in New York. With the Easter holiday right in front of us, and U.S. tax filing on the 15th, I could certainly imagine a scenario in which somebody had to liquidate a position, even if they wanted to wait.”

My Guess: Possibly, Casimir received a Margin Call. That would be the more likely explanation because it’s such a common occurrence.

Remember, Margin Calls come into play according to deficient percentage margin coverage in the investor’s total securities’ account, not on a stock-by-stock basis. In the last few days, resource exploratory companies have been especially hard hit.

It is entirely possible, if not likely, a person who has FNC in her account would also have other resource exploratory companies in her account, anyone of which, by itself or in combination, could have precipitated the Margin Call on the entire account.

Keep in mind, even if all the resource exploratory stocks were non-marginable and paid for in cash, other marginable stocks in the account could have caused the Margin Call, requiring the indiscriminate selling of stocks in the account, be they marginable or be they non-marginable. Also keep in mind, an investor may want to sell something for maneuvering room, just so she’s not too close to receiving the Margin Call in the first place.