There is a company out there called StockPatrol.com which publishes a website that many investors rely on. StockPatrol acts as watchdog warning investors of allegedly bad publicly traded companies. But things may not be what they seem.
Analysts are looking at a correlation between StockPatrol’s negative reporting and waves of short-selling. What they find interesting is that there seems to be a certain pattern.
This is how the short-selling scam is suspected to work.
Selling often starts shortly before StockPatrol puts out its negative report – while a company’s stock price is still high. This brings an amount of money into the sellers’ accounts.
When StockPatrol releases its negative report, it initiates a downward momentum. The short-sellers continue to sell, reinforcing the downward trend and in the process bring in additional money.
As the panicked shareholders of the affected company try to get out of the declining stock, the stock tumbles, at which point the short-sellers quietly start buying the necessary amount of stock back to cover their short positions at a fraction of their original price.
The difference they keep as their profit. Obviously, the affected company, its management and shareholders don’t benefit from this. They are the losers.
The money the short-sellers can make on the backs of small company investors must be significant, considering that StockPatrol deals in low priced stocks where even small changes in price represent a large percentage change. Further, StockPatrol has to be aware that through its negative reporting it is actually sabotaging small company prospects, thus removing risk from shorting those companies.
An ingenious modus operandi – assured money making mechanism that is virtually risk-less.
Operating out of his multi-million dollar five bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan with one bedroom dedicated to the StockPatrol, its sole operator, Mr. Hartley Bernstein receives no compensation for his work and dedicates his time and own money purely for the social cause of being a self-appointed watchdog of the securities markets. StockPatrol states that its mission is to inquire, investigate, research and report on interesting, odd and unusual developments in the securities markets.
Upon closer look however, StockPatrol’s reports amount to clever derogatory innuendoes by Mr. Bernstein. He gives them a particular kind of spin. But these aren’t simply inconsequential private opinions. Mr. Bernstein has built a following and, when he makes an innuendo to bash a company, he knows it is bound to produce a negative market response.
StockPatrol does a lot of reporting. But it appears that Mr. Bernstein has never bothered to substantiate his innuendoes and has never contacted the firms he attacks. In fact, when one brave company challenged him for a public debate he simply disappeared.Obviously, Mr. Bernstein wouldn’t be shorting himself. Shorting would have to be done through untraceable off-shore accounts and by remote parties without a direct connection to him.
But there must be one connection. Short-sellers somehow happen to know ahead of time on which companies StockPatrol is going to issue its reports. Is it a mere coincidence, or is there a friendly leak at StockPatrol?Ingenious as it may be, shorting small cap stocks is not only wrong it is actually illegal, especially on a downward trend!
As it turns out, Mr. Bernstein actually has a background in securities scheming, deceit and lying – even perjuring himself in Court. He is no stranger to law breaking.
Mr. Hartley Bernstein is a disbarred New York attorney. He is also a convicted felon. Mr. Bernstein was found guilty of stock fraud and perjury at the U.S. District Court in New York. If you want to spend $25 you can download the indictment and conviction details.
As in organized crime cases, in this case the government used Mr. Bernstein as one of the key figures to convict the others. In exchange for his testimony against his buddies in crime, Mr. Bernstein bargained for himself a lighter sentence.
Mr. Bernstein apparently claims that he is reformed now. Notwithstanding, his background must be considered. According to a New York Times article a few years ago on Mr. Bernstein’s past, some regulators are skeptical and believe that recidivism with this type of crime is standard.
It does look odd that Mr. Bernstein is running StockPatrol – it’s like having a convicted bank robber manage a bank or having and ex child molester work in an elementary school.
Mr. Bernstein has the audacity to make up unsubstantiated innuendoes giving them his typical spin that portrays business people building companies as being somehow crooked. In reality, the crooks by enlarge come from the securities industry victimizing companies for their ends.At a minimum, Mr. Bernstein, as well as the regulators who permit him to go on, must realize that they are responsible for effectively depressing the stock of the small companies that Mr. Bernstein denigrates through his innuendo reporting.
Don’t these small firms deserve government protection against such attacks by a convicted felon?
While there inevitably must be bad apples among small cap companies, as there are among large companies, it does not appear that the majority of the firms that Mr. Bernstein attacks have done anything wrong.
If there is any wrongdoing by the companies that Mr. Bernstein has been allowed to slander, then regulators should charge those companies. But that is not the case.
A question has to be asked, are regulators looking the other way when it comes to wrongdoing by Mr. Bernstein? If so, what is the rationale? The word on the Street is that certain regulators value Mr. Bernstein and have allowed him to carry on with his innuendo reporting “for prophylactic reasons” to keep small companies in check, so to speak.
If there is truth to this, this would bring into question the regulators’ ethics and wisdom.
What is happening is that Mr. Bernstein, acting as a quasi-governmental representative, is harming legitimate small business, undermining capital formation at the grassroots level and affecting the integrity of the small cap market. He should be investigated.
Understandably, for the regulators securing actionable evidence against someone skillful like Mr. Bernstein may not be so easy the second time around and he may represent an embarrassment. There may be however grounds for civil action by the affected companies.Investors and executives of affected companies have been wondering for some time now whether Mr. Bernstein is just an overzealous man who acts for no other reason but to selflessly protect the investing public’s interests, or if there is a more practical side to this – Whether there is basis to suspicions that StockPatrol and its related outlets (Stock Watchdog, Radar’s Doghouse, Stock or Schlock, The Radar Screen, Buyer Be Weary, Know Your Broker, Regulations on Patrol) are a front for one of the biggest short-selling scams in the small cap market.
What is even more disconcerting is that everybody is afraid to talk about Mr. Bernstein out of fear of retaliation. Even news reporters are shy to explore legitimate concerns regarding Mr. Bernstein.
Optimized by Software Submit.NET
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)