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Non-Tech : Auric Goldfinger's Short List -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mmmary who wrote (10092)	6/28/2002 5:03:11 PM
From: ayn rand	Respond to of 19428

Mary, gotta agree with you on this one. It never seems to fail, once a company starts talking about the shorts as an excuse for falling stock prices, it seems to be the kiss of death for the company. I will usually add to a short on any significant bounce after seeing this red flag. This scenario seems to occur again and again and again. I'm sure at least once or a few times this may have occurred in the absence of company demise, I just haven't seen it. Perhaps Edsharp could be so kind as to post a company of record where this has not occurred, as he seems strongly opinionated on this subject?

To: mmmary who wrote (10092)	6/29/2002 12:57:50 PM
From: Edscharp	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 19428

Mary, Point 1, you know as well as I do how incredibly difficult, expensive and time consuming it is to win a libel suit. Dishonest short traders have little fear of this. Besides, it is usually not necessary to engage in blatant lying when distortion, innuendo and half-truths will work just as well. Point 2, I agree that it is easier to short a loser company. I would also make the observation that it is to the advantage of the short-trader to embellish bad news of the 'loser' company in any way they can and I submit that they do engage in distortion, innuendo and half-truths to exaggerate the problems of the company to get an even steeper decline in share price that might otherwise have been. It doesn't take the passive observer very long to appreciate that this is exactly the reason why message boards are suddenly flooded with a large number of short-traders willing to bash the company and intimidate other Posters with their in-your-face approach. Tony excelled at this. If he had any compassion for the small investor I certainly missed it. Short-traders that publicly bash and mash aren't interested in waiting for a company to fall on it's own weight. They want to bring the share price down hard and fast so they can get on to their next target. Point 3, again, I agree. Shorting a scummy company will bring more profits than shorting an honest one, but that really isn't the issue here. I submit the classic short & distort tactic that we see so often on these message boards is to find a troubled company and then present it in the worse possible light. Distortion is acceptable and encouraged. Mary, your basic argument is that short-traders perform a service to all investors and the market in general by weeding out the bad dishonest companies. And, on a certain level I agree with you. However, it is the manner in which they bash that is repugnant. They use embarrassing truths about a company to give credence to their own distortions. They don't do it because they care about the little investors that are about to lose their shirts, they do it for their own personal enrichment. They are not there to objectively assess the company's plusses and minuses, or to create a better more transparent company, they are there to undermine the share price, pure and simple. Certainly, not all short-traders engage in this kind of behavior, but the ones that do, in my book; aren't heroes. They are ethically impaired opportunists who have found an easy way to make money by sitting in front of their computer screens. JMHO

To: mmmary who wrote (10092)	6/29/2002 2:48:50 PM
From: Edscharp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19428

Mary, "Don't you and GaBard have a NAMBLA meeting today?" Message 17673496 Bear Down is a perfect example of what I mean about the "in-your-face" approach to posting messages. Not happy with what I have to say he makes ad hominem attacks upon me. Presumably with the idea that this will change my mind, make me go away, or humble me as a laughing-stock in the eyes of others. Won't work on me, never will; but I imagine that this kind of tactic is effective on other people. Most people don't like abuse and will shy away accordingly. More importantly, this kind of tactic does nothing to enhance the reputation of short traders. Quite the opposite. It's not informative nor persuasive. It's sole purpose is to intimidate and to evade the issues that I brought up in my post. Mary, you're trying to put a respectable face on short-trading. People like Bear Down will make that task all but impossible for you. Regards, Ed