Should it also be illegal for a company to issue press releases when good things happen? Or, maybe, required that they issue press releases any time there’s bad news?
I don’t see a problem with it as long as it’s clear that the group pushing the bad news is honest about their short position. Especially in a world where an advertising duopoly has appropriated nearly all the advertising money that used to support news, and as a result news organizations are crumbling, we need short sellers. Shorting a company is extremely risky, and generally an organization will only take a short position if they’re sure the stock is overvalued. That means they’re going to do deep research on the company – the kind of research that used to be done by financial reporters.
Naturally, if they do take a short position they really need the stock to drop, so they’re going to frame everything they find in the most negative light possible. They’re also going to be extremely aggressive about getting the news out, because they need shareholders who don’t pay much attention to the news to hear about what’s happening and want to sell. While they might not be fully honest about the companies they’re shorting, the kinds of companies they’re shorting are also often not being at all honest about their performance.
I’m sure that sometimes a company gets targeted by short sellers without doing anything wrong. But, I’m even more sure that there are companies out there lying to their investors to keep their stock price high.
Should it also be illegal for a company to issue press releases when good things happen? Or, maybe, required that they issue press releases any time there’s bad news?
I don’t see a problem with it as long as it’s clear that the group pushing the bad news is honest about their short position. Especially in a world where an advertising duopoly has appropriated nearly all the advertising money that used to support news, and as a result news organizations are crumbling, we need short sellers. Shorting a company is extremely risky, and generally an organization will only take a short position if they’re sure the stock is overvalued. That means they’re going to do deep research on the company – the kind of research that used to be done by financial reporters.
Naturally, if they do take a short position they really need the stock to drop, so they’re going to frame everything they find in the most negative light possible. They’re also going to be extremely aggressive about getting the news out, because they need shareholders who don’t pay much attention to the news to hear about what’s happening and want to sell. While they might not be fully honest about the companies they’re shorting, the kinds of companies they’re shorting are also often not being at all honest about their performance.
I’m sure that sometimes a company gets targeted by short sellers without doing anything wrong. But, I’m even more sure that there are companies out there lying to their investors to keep their stock price high.