Bob Drummond
Bloomberg, 1 September 2006
Traders who sell shares they don’t own—and haven’t even borrowed—are driving down prices. More than 425 companies a month may be the victims of these schemes.
Web: Lies, Invention, Journalists, and the SEC
WebLies, Invention, Journalists, and the SEC
Bob O’Brien
Yahoo as cited by Sanity Check via Wayback, 21 August 2006
The subject matter, Mark Cuban’s ill-conceived stock bashing website that’s nothing more than a foil to slam his short positions, is the ostensible topic. I haven’t even bothered commenting on the site, as it’s pretty obvious to most upright bipeds what is being done there.
But this article is astounding – I literally thought that the guy who emailed me the link was making it up.
Article: Hedge Fund Hell
Article - MediaLiz Moyer
Forbes cited by RGM Communications via Wayback, 28 July 2006
Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings filed a $5 billion lawsuit against SAC Capital, Rocker Partners and a number of other hedge funds, claiming they manipulated the insurance company’s stock, shearing its market cap by one-third.
Earlier this week, the regulatory arm of NYSE Group, fined Daiwa Securities America, Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing, Credit Suisse Securities, and Citigroup Global Markets $1.25 million for violations of Regulation SHO–a rule put in place in January 2005 to clamp down on abuses–related to how they handle and monitor short-sale transactions by hedge funds and other clients.
Video Series (1 + 9): Dark Side of the Looking Glass
Video
Judd Bagley: This presentation, created in 2006, launched the popular market reform movement. Overstock.com CEO Dr. Patrick Byrne explains illegal naked short selling, its roots and risks, in terms anybody can understand. It consists of short illustrated videos and then a final uncut full audio.
Robert Steele: This website is dedicated to PB.
Continue reading “Video Series (1 + 9): Dark Side of the Looking Glass”
Article: ‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle
Uncategorized‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle
Companies on the defensive seize upon an aggressive form of shorting
Alistair Barr
MarketWatch, 14 June 2006
By one contentious estimate, it’s a big problem plaguing more than 10% of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. An NYSE probe into whether naked shorting was used to force down shares of Vonage Holdings Corp. VG, +3.53% lower during the Internet phone company’s May initial public offering has added fuel to the fire. See full story.
Continue reading “Article: ‘Naked’ short selling is center of looming legal battle”
Article: Overstock.com dukes it out with short sellers
Article - Media, PublicationsOverstock.com dukes it out with short sellers
The Associated Press, 12 June 2006
Most people buy stock hoping the price goes up, but hedge fund manager David Rocker was “shorting” shares of Utah-based Internet retailer Overstock.com Inc., betting the share price would decline.
Rocker’s fund was making a legal bet that Overstock shares in 2004 were overvalued and due for a correction. Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, however, sued, accusing New York-based Rocker Partners of collaborating on disparaging reports with the stock-research firm Gradient Analytics of Scottsdale, Ariz., while Rocker was shorting the shares. Continue reading “Article: Overstock.com dukes it out with short sellers”
Article: Byrne caring and generous
Article - Media, PublicationsDeseret News, 29 May 2006
I read Lee Davidson’s annual article on the top political contributors in Utah. What should be written is a companion piece on how much money to charity and research these men and women give annually. The amount surpasses political donations by millions.
Mr. Davidson goes in great detail about Dr. Patrick Byrne of Overstock.com. The people of Utah should know about another side of Dr. Byrne’s generosity. Patrick gave $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Valley this year without us asking. Nor did he seek any acclaim or recognition. He did it because he cares about kids and the potential of every child. Continue reading “Article: Byrne caring and generous”
Article: Brokers in an Uproar over Utah Law Cracking Down on “Naked Short Selling”
Article - MediaBrokers in an Uproar over Utah Law Cracking Down on “Naked Short Selling”
Lincoln Journal Star cited by RGM Communications via Wayback, 28 May 2006
A bill approved by the Utah Legislature is causing an angry revolt among Wall Street firms with Utah operations.
The measure cracks down on a stock trading practice defended by some as necessary for orderly markets and assailed by others as easily exploited for stock manipulation.
At issue is short selling, the investors’ practice of borrowing stock and selling it, hoping the share price declines so they can buy cheaper shares, return them to the lender and pocket the difference.
Web: Are Financial Journalists Nazi’s/Socialists/Communists in Drag? Remember Dan Dorfman?
WebAre Financial Journalists Nazi’s/Socialists/Communists in Drag? Remember Dan Dorfman?
Bud Burrell
Sanity Check via Wayback, 1 March 2006
I witnessed some of the most unprofessional broadcast journalism in my life history yesterday and today, in the treatment of Dr. Patrick Byrne on Kudlow and Co, where a gang of jounalists literally shouted over his voice, and this morning on CNBC, where the same tactics were tried again, only to have Patrick hold up a sign sending every viewer to go to www.thesanitycheck.com for more information.
These tactics I witnessed were similar to those used by the left against Ann Coulter recently, and are mirrored in the conduct of the Brown Shirts supporting Hitler in Germany in the 1920’s and 1930’s, and the Communists throughout their history. The hard left has used these tactics for decades, because they didn’t and don’t have an intelligent response to or plan for the issues at hand. Ditto here.
Article: Corporate reform dead; SEC chief should resign
Article - MediaCorporate reform dead; SEC chief should resign
Loren Steffy
Houston Chronicle, 1 March 2006
Corporate governance reform is dead. Its last gasp was stifled by the subpoenas issued last month by the Securities and Exchange Commission against several news organizations and writers.
Last week, Marketwatch .com columnist Herb Greenberg and Dow Jones Newswires columnist Carol Remond acknowledged receiving the subpoenas, which involved stories about Internet retailer Overstock .com.
Article: CFRN,Bud Burrell,attorney Ron Logan,’naked short’ penny stock scam,Phoenix,Arizona
Article - Media, PublicationsCFRN,Bud Burrell,attorney Ron Logan,’naked short’ penny stock scam,Phoenix,Arizona
Tony Ryals, 08 February 2006
Note ‘Bob O’Brien’,who refuses to identify himself, has threatened both Marc Cohodes a hedge fund manager and myself a defrauded investor in his scam on Yahhoo.com NFI and OSTK message boards. Continue reading “Article: CFRN,Bud Burrell,attorney Ron Logan,’naked short’ penny stock scam,Phoenix,Arizona”
Web: The Death of a Thousand Cuts
WebBud Burrell
Sanity Check via Wayback, 2 February 2006
During my undergraduate studies, I read of an historical method of execution known as the Death of a Thousand Cuts. I have come to see that as a metaphor for how guerrilla wars (like ours) are won and lost.
Whether any of us have fully realized it or not, we have been engaged by an insidious enemy whose sole desire was to steal what was not theirs from others they viewed as their inferiors, rather than earn it legitimately. When a person was executed by the infliction of a thousand small cuts, the pain was enormous, eventually killing the subject by shock and loss of blood, but very, very slowly.
Article: Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne is waging an EXTRAORDINARY CAMPAIGN against short-sellers. The hedge fund guys say he has underperformed. He says they are tools of a sinister “SITH LORD.”
Article - Media, PublicationsBETHANY MCLEAN, 14 November 2005
Even hardened denizens of Wall Street were shocked by a conference call that Patrick Byrne, the CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, held on Aug. 12. “I want to get something off my chest,” Byrne announced. Then he launched into a rant about a “miscreants ball” in which he mentioned hedge funds, journalists, investigators, trial lawyers, the SEC, and even Eliot Spitzer. “I believe there’s been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock, drive it down to $6–$10 … and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up.” The “designated final owner,” who provided the “orchestration,” was someone Byrne dubbed the “Sith Lord,” a person he refused to identify other than to say that “he’s one of the master criminals from the 1980s.” And that’s just the basic outline. There was more. As Mark Cuban, the billionaire investor, later wrote on his blog, “Never before in the history of Wall Street has a single conference call mentioned the following topics: miscreants, an unnamed Sith Lord he hopes the feds will bury under a prison, gay bathhouses, whether he is gay, does cocaine, both or neither, and an obligatory ‘not that there is anything wrong with that,’ phone taps, phone lines misdirected to Mexico, arrested reporters, payoffs, conspiracies, crooks, egomaniacs, fools, paranoia, which newspapers are shills and for who, payoffs, money laundering, his Irish temper, false identities, threats, intimidation, and private investigators. All in 61 minutes.” Cuban is now short 20,000 shares of Overstock. Continue reading “Article: Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne is waging an EXTRAORDINARY CAMPAIGN against short-sellers. The hedge fund guys say he has underperformed. He says they are tools of a sinister “SITH LORD.””
Article: Overstock’s phantom menace
Article - MediaBethany McLean
CNN Money, 1 November 2005
Patrick Byrne, the 42-year-old CEO of online retail liquidator Overstock.com, is under growing pressure to deliver numbers that prove his business will make money.
Certainly the third-quarter results, announced on Friday, Oct. 28, did not help his cause. Once again Overstock.com (Research) lost far more than analysts were expecting.
Article: Overstock’s Three Affidavits
Article - Media, PublicationsJohn Reeves, 05 October 2005
The nearly endless fount of mirth surrounding Patrick Byrne’s lawsuit against Gradient Analytics, short-selling hedge fund Rocker Partners, and others is obscuring a case with fairly broad implications for security analysis, First Amendment rights, and the credibility of our public markets.
While fanciful visions of Sith Lords and evil shorting hordes make for good copy, this is a lawsuit that is about something more substantive: an accusation that Gradient and Rocker resorted to unfair business practices to knock down Overstock.com’s (NASDAQ:OSTK) share price. Too much coverage has been spent plumbing the entertainment value, and nearly none on the facts of the suit itself. Continue reading “Article: Overstock’s Three Affidavits”
