disrupt the markets and defeat the efforts of small companies coming to market
Can I ask you one thing, Mike? Whatever happened to developing a product, putting it to market, establishing oneself as a viable business, and then -- and only then -- considering an initial public offering?
What right does REFR have to solicit the public markets for funding, then come back two years later saying "oops, it's taking a little longer than we thought", get another two years' worth of funding, and so on and so on for 16 years, while at the same time being placed off-limits to criticism for that?
Should their naked short sell or, worse, the manipulative sell the long while holding the short tactic be allowed to occur
Naked shorting, or at least a looser interpretation of "affirmative determination", is legal in other countries. That can't be helped. On the other hand, my understanding is that there are significant carrying costs for shorting these "unborrowable" stocks, so it is not exactly something that can be done routinely.
The other "tactic" is a deliberate mischaracterization of the everyday practice of "boxing" a short position in order to avoid losing the borrow on a short. There is no evidence -- only assertion -- that this is being abused in any meaningful way, and significant reason to think that doing so would be a losing tactic anyway.
The capitalist system will get along fine without companies like REFR trading publicly. In fact, I claim the system would be stronger for the removal of such companies. I think that five consecutive money-losing years, or five years with revenues below a certain threshold, should be grounds for immediate delisting from all American exchanges. (And only that long to accomodate those speculative biotech stocks that are so popular among the investing public.)
The right to claim fraud should be harbored only by those who do not stand to gain financially from their harangue.
Preposterous. Or do you also believe in similar restrictions on praising and/or promoting companies? Besides which, most longs seem to take claims of fraud as prima facie evidence that the claimant stands to gain from the claim.
It's really a neat catch-22 the promoters have set up. If one criticizes a company, one is either long, and should therefore "just sell and shut up", neutrally positioned, and therefore "not willing to put their money where their mouth is", or short, and therefore "biased by their position". There you have it, a neat, trim way to quash all possible criticism. If only we'd stuck to it, the Nasdaq would have blasted through 5000 and kept on going and we'd all live happily ever after. That about right, Mike? |
