Article: Pay No Attention to That Crazy Man on TV

Article - Media, Publications

Pay No Attention to That Crazy Man on TV

Henry Blodget, Slate, 29 January 2007

It would be impossible to write a “Bad Advice” column about investing without discussing Jim Cramer. I have been through several stages of feelings about Cramer. My initial belief was that the former hedge-fund manager, host of CNBC’s hit show Mad Money, and author of several books about speculating was perhaps the worst thing to happen to the financial security of average Americans since the crumbling of the Social Security system. I developed this theory in the early Mad Money days, when Cramer’s stock-picking track record—if on-air shouts, blurts, and Tourette’s-style tics can ever be called a “record,” which, in a serious context, they obviously can’t—remained close enough to market averages that Cramer was not laughed out of town when he suggested with a straight face that he was giving good advice.

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Article: Flames Flare Over Naked Shorts

Article - Media

Flames Flare Over Naked Shorts

Dan Mitchell

New York Times, 20 January 2007

UNSUSPECTING readers of certain stock message boards may be forgiven for believing they have stumbled into a flame war among 14-year-old boys. But the increasingly vicious online dispute actually involves, among others, the chief executive of a publicly traded corporation and a longtime business journalist.

The chief executive is Patrick Byrne, who in recent years has taken to asserting that a vast conspiracy of securities traders, journalists and government officials is bent on bringing down the stock of his company, Overstock.com, a peddler of excess inventory. The journalist is Gary Weiss, the author and former BusinessWeek reporter who has made a second career out of ridiculing Mr. Byrne on his blog (garyweiss.blogspot.com).

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Letter: To SEC from Dave Patch on Tick Test

Letter

January 12, 2007

Ms. Nancy M. Moms Securities and Exchange Commission 100F Street, NE Washington D. C., 20549-1090

As a follow-up to my previous memo regarding this proposal to eliminate the tick test/ price test, I would like to further emphasize the concerns the public has with regards to the regulations of market making activities as they pertain to this proposed and all other short sale regulations.

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