The Odd Lot Caper

I watched this show and it made no sense at all. Either I don't understand the financial concepts behind the show, or something was cut out of it before it was broadcast. Would most people be able to make sense of the financial mumbo-jumbo in the episode? On a really basic level, you can understand that the woman finds this piece of paper which is for ONE share in a company that some guy bought years before and finally cashed in. That is the "needle in the haystack" which Five-O needs to convict the slimy Murdock.

Here are notes I made (these are actually the second batch of notes), maybe someone can answer some of these questions...

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Clearing house (Bigelow is the manager) - what do they do?

There are all these company names on the "clearing house" floor in each cubicle, for example. What is the significance of this? Bigelow seems to be talking to ALL of the people working on this floor at one point, not just some specific company.

Where is the "clearing house" in relation to the stock exchange? Seems to be in the same building; is it above or below in terms of location in the building. Is this normal?

Why did Laughlin kill Cooper? What was he supposed to do with him? What had Cooper done that would cause problems for Murdock?

There was no "Gwen" working at the stock exchange. So why did Cooper respond to the message which he received from her via pneumatic tube? Her name was only in his address book.

What is Laughlin doing "cutting the power" to the main alarm at the end of act one? I don't understand the significance of this.

The killer (Laughlin) must have known about Gwen ... how?

Murdock will put up the collateral from the stocks in his vault to raise money for his project. Son points out that this is illegal. Murdock says Wilbur Sloan is "loaning me the replacement stock. He shipped it from Boston today." What does this mean?

Sloan owes Murdock favors. He will come up with $25 million in negotiable securities from his New Jersey and Pennsylvania associates (suggestion this is organized crime).

Laughlin tells his associates Murdock will get his money in stocks, it will take years to turn it into cash. He tells them this because they are complaining their take is peanuts compared to the total amount they will steal.

Laughlin and his gang go to all these brokerages and steal paperwork, they burn the ledgers which keep a record of transactions (this was before computers, obviously). On the clearing house floor, they also destroy microfilm of the transactions and shoot the machine which makes or reads the microfilm (I think).

Do they know specifically which paperwork to steal, or are they just taking everything?

Are they stealing from several brokerages to disguise the fact that they are stealing from Murdock's company as well? If they just stole from Murdock's, it would be very suspicious. I think there are more brokerage houses in Honolulu than the ones which are robbed in the show.

Long discussion with Bigelow: What's the latest estimate, Mr. Beaufort? Roughly 40 million in negotiable securities. Forty million? Just how negotiable is negotiable security? As I understand it, among brokers, they're as interchangeable as dollar bills, is that correct? Afraid so. You see, the negotiable stocks are stocks in street name. - Street name? - That's right. They're made out to the names of brokerage houses, not individuals. And they knew enough to take only the street-name stocks? That's right. They knew just exactly which files to go for. - Then these stocks are not traceable? - That's right too. As they buy and sell, brokers swap street name stocks with each other. New York, Illinois, Maryland, anywhere. Well, if the names are no help, what would you do if you lost some stock? We do keep daily ledgers. In addition, our computer microfilms every certificate we process. And a backup system records it in the computer memory core. Then if the stolen stocks are sold, we can trace them. No, Ben, it won't work. Even if we caught them with the stocks in their possession, we couldn't prove that they were stolen. Don't you see? That's exactly why they took that microfilm out of the computer and shot out the memory core. And those torches burned up the ledgers and records with the certificate numbers.

The above suggests the robbers were very specific, but they were just grabbing piles of paper and throwing it into these carts.

McGarrett says to check all freight terminals and the post office. The crooks are shown putting the stuff into mail bags. One of these bags shows "SLOAN" on it (you have to look fast), this is Murdock's pal. They don't seem to be sorting out certain things from this paper that they are throwing in the bags. Are these postal bags being shipped out immediately? Murdoch later says something about stuff arriving FROM Sloan.

Danno talks to women at the clearing house, says if they could identify just one piece of paper that was stolen, then could make an arrest. The women tell him this is almost impossible.

The crooks stole $40 million of securities, I thought it was only $25 million. What will they do with the rest? If Murdock needs only $25 million, maybe he shouldn't complain about giving Laughlin $13 million of $40 million (1/3).

Laughlin is stupid, can't he see that the "microfilm" that he got from the one company is blank? Is this roll of film supposed to include everything that they stole?

After he meets Laughlin, Murdock's son tells father that the $40 million which is now in his vault "didn't come from Sloan."

Lady from clearing house comes to H50, says she can identify one particular stock, the guy only bought one share.

Murdock calls H50, they come to his office and inspect stuff in his vault. How many pieces of paper are there? Aren't there like thousands? Why would this one share piece of paper be in their vault? Was that something that was too insignificant for them to deal with? I don't get it, I thought all the paperwork that was stolen (which would have included this single share paper) was shipped off to Sloan. Wasn't it sent to him? Murdock is talking to McG, he says "Did you at least check with Wilbur Sloan in Boston? And now that's where all these stocks [the stuff in the vault, which includes the soon-to-be-revealed single share] come from. They were shipped via Merchant Air Express, I can get you the waybill number." McG says "Forget it. We've already checked. Sloan backs you to the hilt." Didn't anyone check Sloan's credentials?

When they find he single stock, which would be like a needle in a haystack, the lady from the clearing house identifies it and Murdock is busted.