Organized Short Sellers Use Media to Disseminate False Information on GenesisIntermedia and Ramy El-Batrawi
Friday September 15, 9:00 am ET
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- In early 2001, GenesisIntermedia (OTC: GENI - News) was heavily shorted by what appears to be a group of organized shorter sellers. Having established a sizable short position, the short sellers began disseminating negative publicity about GENI and Ramy El-Batrawi in an effort to drive down the stock price, states Mr. El-Batrawi.
Shorters began posting negative information on public message boards to drive the price of GENI down, but instead of dropping, the price continued to surge upwards. Then a reporter from financial news service Bloomberg started to write a series of negative articles on the company. The articles accomplished what the short sellers could not independently accomplish. Subsequently after the 9/11 attack, the negative press, and the concerted efforts of short sellers attacking the company trading in the stock was halted and once it resumed trading, it was all but worthless. This is a text book example of how the media can bring a stock down.
The shorts enlisted the help of journalists; one of them was a financial writer whose columns regularly appeared in Bloomberg News. Throughout 2001, he wrote a series of negative, and consistently inaccurate, reports about GENI and Mr. El-Batrawi. The journalist's efforts on behalf of short sellers where not limited to GENI, and some of his other targets fought back: in 2000, Computer Thermal Imaging, Inc. and Hitsgalore sued for libel, and in 2002, Wade Cook Financial Corp. issued a public statement challenging journalist's distortions of its public filings.
What happened to GENI is not uncommon, but is often a situation that goes unnoticed. One must always wonder what the motivation is of journalists who write slanted articles, either positive or negative. Are they reporting news or do they have other motivations or interests? Whatever the answer is, it is obvious that the media can have a direct influence on the value of publicly traded companies. It is also very obvious that the media can be influenced and corrupted.
Abusive short sale practices are illegal. It is prohibited for any person to engage in a series of transactions in order to create actual or apparent active trading in a security or to depress the price of a security for the purpose of inducing the sale of the security by others.
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Source: GenesisIntermedia |
