Olivier, the following is why I wanted to see David Evans on the stand for tony's trial. The cast of characters play the media like a fiddle to attack companies. On Yahoo fake (vulgar) press releases, have been published. When someone takes boiler plate that was in years of SEC filings and reports it as NEWS (like what follows), something is wrong. They do not play fairly imo and I hope they get cracked for it.
To: rrufff who wrote () 3/17/2000 2:21:00 PM
From: rrufff Read Replies (2) 3316 of 6367
I don't know whether to believe this but someone IM'd me and said Auric has to cover by the end of the day as he is getting killed on this and several others. Could that be??
Message 13228206
To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (3314) 3/17/2000 2:26:00 PM
From: TheTruthseeker Read Replies (1) 3318 of 6367
Xybernaut's Outside Auditor Issues `Going Concern' Warning
Fairfax, Virginia, March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Xybernaut Corp.'s auditor warned there's ``substantial doubt' about the maker of wearable computer systems' ability to continue as a going concern, citing its continuing losses and need for more capital.
Shares of the Fairfax, Virginia-based company have gained more than 20-fold since September as the company announced a sale to Firestone Building Products Co. and said it was in talks with several ``world class' technology companies, including International Business Machines Corp., about joint projects.
The stock fell 1 1/2 to 20 1/2 in midafternoon trading of 977,000 shares. Its 36.7 million shares are valued at more than $730 million.
Grant Thornton LLP issued its caution about Xybernaut's future in a letter dated Feb. 25, filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission in its annual report. Grant Thornton was hired after the company fired its prior auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP on Sept. 13. That accounting firm issued a ``going concern' warning to the company last year.
'The company feels comfortable' with the fundraising done since year's end,' said Xybernaut Controller Tom Davis in an interview.
Grant Thornton cited Xybernaut's ``recurring losses from operations' and said the company, which has accumulated losses of $48 million, will need more cash to fund its operations.
The annual report also revealed funding arrangements for the $13 million Xybernaut raised so far this year, including shares sold for well below market price.
It sold 647,500 unregistered shares in January for $2.46 million, for an average price of $3.80 a share. That's less than half the $11.20 average weighted price for the 60.1 million shares traded in January, according to Bloomberg analytics.
Xybernaut also borrowed $3 million in January at 10 percent interest. The unidentified lenders received an added inducement: warrants to buy 302,500 shares of stock at 10 cents a share.
In January and February, the company received $7 million as it issued 1,867,700 shares at an average price of $3.79 to investors exercising warrants received in prior financings.
An additional $618,970 was raised from employees and consultants exercising stock options for 231,842 shares, at an average price of $2.67.
As the company reported in a press release earlier this week, its 1999 loss widened to $16.8 million, or 78 cents a share from $13.1 million, or 80 cents. Average shares outstanding increased to 23.8 million from 17.7 million.
Revenue increased to $3.3 million from $875,560.
Xybernaut had a ``negligible' backlog of orders on Dec. 31. It holds 13 U.S. patents, with 12 patents pending.
Mar/17/2000 14:15
For more stories from Bloomberg News, click here.
(C) Copyright 2000 Bloomberg L.P.
Message 13228257
To: TheTruthseeker who wrote (3318) 3/17/2000 2:40:00 PM
From: Sir Auric Goldfinger Read Replies (2) 3319 of 6367
Auric beats Bloomberg by hours! Stock down and I warned these fish and they said it did not matter. Yeah sure.
Message 13228409
To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (3319) 3/17/2000 2:44:00 PM
From: Paul Viapiano Read Replies (6) 3320 of 6367
Unbelievable that Bloomberg lacks the journalistic integrity to print that trash...a very brazen short tactic to alert them about this boilerplate...
In the same article, XYBRs CFO says he is comfortable with the co. finances.
Also the same 10K says XYBR fine for cash for the forseeable future.
In fact, as I type, shorts are scrambling to cover.
I remain...XYBR to 30 and they know it, and they were scared _ _ _ _ less!!!
Message 13228450
To: Paul Viapiano who wrote (3320) 3/17/2000 4:20:00 PM
From: Anthony@Pacific 3342 of 6367
LOL....!!!
ooops
Message 13229476
Which ironically was written about
The Fortune Tellers
Inside Wall Street's Game of Money, Media, and Manipulation
by Howard Kurtz
palmdigitalmedia.com
INTRODUCTION
At 2:15 P.M. on Friday, March 17, 2000, a little-known reporter blew a sizable hole in the stock of a high-flying, high-tech outfit called the Xybernaut Corporation.
The company, which makes miniature computers that can be worn as accessories, had been on an incredible tear, the likes of which had somehow become breathtakingly routine in the dizzying atmosphere of Wall Street. Its stock, which had been selling for $1.31 a share the previous October, had hit nearly $30 two weeks earlier -- a more than twenty-fold increase for a firm with just eighty full-time employees-before settling back to $23 a share.
But the situation changed dramatically when David Evans, a reporter in the Los Angeles bureau of the Bloomberg News service, got online to examine Xybernaut's filing that morning with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Evans found some troubling language that he quickly filed in a terse report for the Bloomberg financial wire.
"Xybernaut Corp.'s auditor warned there's 'substantial doubt' about the maker of wearable computer systems' ability to continue as a going concern, citing its continuing losses and need for more capital," the story began.
Xybernaut stock dropped precipitously until the market's 4:00 P.M. closing bell, and again in after-hours trading, to 14 15/16. In the space of a few short hours, the company, based in Fairfax, Virginia, had lost more than a third of its market value. The power of a single journalist to puncture the helium balloon of soaring stock prices had never been greater. But the lightning speed of modern technology also gave corporate executives the tools to fight back.
John Moynahan, Xybernaut's chief financial officer, was on vacation in Florida and had turned off his cell phone about fifteen minutes before the Bloomberg report hit. He was extremely upset when he belatedly learned of the story. The warning by the company's accounting firm was, in Moynahan's view, mere legal boilerplate. The company had included it in every one of its SEC statements since going public in 1996, and raising the needed cash had never been a problem. The reporter had simply put the most alarmist spin on the story, describing Xybernaut as though it were in dire financial straits. Moynahan also thought the timing of the article, late on a Friday, was suspicious, and wondered whether investors who had shorted the stock -- betting that its price would decline -- had something to do with the story.
At 9:40 on Saturday morning, Moynahan opened his laptop and signed onto a message board on Yahoo!'s Website that was devoted entirely to Xybernaut. Moynahan had founded the club, which had nine hundred members and drew as many as eleven thousand "page views" a day, and served as the site's moderator. He quickly planted his flag in that stretch of cyberspace, declaring that "in my six years with Xybernaut, the future for the company and its shareholders has never been brighter than it is today."
Many club members, who actively traded the stock, were sympathetic. "The Bloomberg piece was a hit job, more or less," one person said.
"The article and the timing smelled very fishy!" said another.
Moynahan spent the rest of the day helping the company draft a press release assailing the Bloomberg piece. A company attorney had already complained to Bloomberg executives, who stood by the story. On Monday morning, Xybernaut said in its statement that the plunge in the stock price "was based on reaction to an article released late Friday afternoon and was not based on any fundamental change in our operations.... The article did not accurately nor fairly describe our current position... or our future opportunities."
David Evans was unperturbed by the conspiracy theories, since no one had prompted him to check the SEC filing. This was what he did for a living, digging out the fine print that companies declined to put in their press releases. Evans was accustomed to being deluged with angry e-mail from investors who blamed him when their stocks tanked, who viewed him as the evil messenger. But he was simply using government documents to tell the full story.
On Tuesday morning, March 21, company executives issued another release that would prove even more important. Xybernaut said that the company and its products would be featured that evening on CNBC, the business network that carried immense clout with investors. The mere announcement of the upcoming segment helped boost Xybernaut's stock 24 percent, to just over $21 a share, or slightly below where it had been when the Bloomberg piece hit the wires.
At 5:39 P.M., Evans moved another damaging story on the Bloomberg wire. Weeks earlier, Xybernaut had trumpeted a "buy" rating on its stock from a research firm called Access 1 Financial, which had predicted that the price would double within six months. Indeed, the price doubled within a month. What the company did not disclose, Evans had found, was that Mark Bergman, the president and founder of Access 1 Financial, was a former Xybernaut executive who still owned options to buy shares in the company.
But Evans's report was immediately overshadowed. At 6:21, CNBC anchor Bill Griffeth introduced the segment on Xybernaut by saying: "You can wear just about everything else, why not your computer? It turns out that you can.... A small company called Xybernaut has already made big strides in the hands-off computer sector." The story was punctuated by upbeat comments from Moynahan, and reporter Mike Hegedus posed in the studio with a computer attached to his belt and a futuristic-looking headset that enabled him to see the monitor by peering into a small mirror dangling before his right eye. Shortly after 7:00 P.M., CNBC's Business Center reported that Xybernaut stock had gained another dollar in after-hours trading. In the space of five days, the company's stock had been decimated and then magically revived, thanks to the media power-brokers who wielded such enormous influence on Wall Street.
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