Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Anthony @ Equity Investigations, Dear Anthony, -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Edscharp who wrote (77993)	6/15/2002 10:43:08 PM
From: peter michaelson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 122087

Ed, I appreciate your thoughtful post, and in most respects I agree with you. Very interesting analysis of why different camps speak up at different times. You have a talent for seeing the motivations of different people. By the way, I love your phrase, 'ethically impaired' - too funny. We do have one significant difference, which affects our basic outlooks on the Tony situation. In my professional (it is my profession to research stocks) opinion, nearly every stock that Tony called a short, was a very good short due to fundamental reasons. I do not believe the success of his calls was due to creating fear and panic caused by bashing and pillaging on message boards. Perhaps that technique accelerated the retreat in some cases - usually where the evidence of fraud was overwhelming and often followed by SEC litigation. In many other cases, it had no affect. I have done a hell of a lot of research on a large number of stocks. As a research oriented member of his site, I researched almost every one of his calls, sometimes before he called it, usually after. There were very few calls to short a stock that was not hideously over-valued, sometimes due to paid pump campaigns, or bribing of stockbrokers, or undisclosed facts, or disclosed but ignored facts, or facts disclosed in a way that, by design, the public misunderstood the facts, or a multitude of other reasons. Until encountering Tony, I had no idea of the scope of misrepresentation and outright fraud in the stock market, most blatantly on Bulletin Board stocks, but also on NAZ stocks such as ADSX recently. I have witnessed this literally hundreds of times over the past 3 years. Like a cop, Tony began to think that every company was a fraud. Given the Internet Bubble, in large part he turned out to be right, in a way. Tony had an unfortunate habit of calling a stock he didn't like a fraud or a scam. His definition of those terms grew to be overly inclusive. He really meant that the stock was being presented as much better than it really was, and that this was done intentionally in order to sell paper to the public. Sometimes, often in fact, illegal fraud was committed - often times it was not illegal, but unethical. He called Blodgett a scammer, and Abby Cohen, Goldman Sachs, Alan Greenspan even (lol) etc etc. Perhaps they broke no laws, but people sure did lose a lot of money because of them. What I am trying to say is that the stock market really is oriented in large part for insiders to sell paper - to cash out and leave investors holding the bag. If you did what I do, you too would start to see it as one big criminal infested rip-off. If you assume that orientation for a moment, your perspective on this situation may change. One of the best reasons to be angry with Tony, assuming he is guilty of the alleged crimes, is that he has damaged the reputation of all short-sellers. While in a position to do the most good, to bring to light the scams and excesses of the market, he really did major bad by undermining every shortseller trying to get the truth out into the public. Best to you, Peter