

Overstock CEO stalks critics on Facebook - petewarden
http://garyweiss.blogspot.com/2009/12/how-patrick-byrne-stalked-critics-and.html

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Imprecate
Can someone explain exactly what's going on here between these guys? It all
seems like a bunch of schizophrenic rambling.

I have no opinion on Overstock as an investment or business, but their market
cap is around $300mm; I don't see how hedge funds could make enough shorting
it for it to be worth committing fraud.

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gamble
Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock, has been on a crusade against naked short
sellers, blaming a group of hedge funds for driving down his company's stock.
He's been all but called a nutjob in the financial press, which has led him to
criticize certain journalists as being in bed with the short-sellers.

The most recent episode concerned Deep Capture, a blog that supports Byrne.
They were able to obtain the Facebook friends lists for the hedge fund
managers and journalists targeted by Byrne and were able to show a large
number of cross-links between the journalists and fund managers, and in some
cases their families. Deep Capture was careful to avoid making specific
charges, but the basic argument is that it establishes the possibility of
collusion between the fund managers and an unprofessionally close personal
relationship with the journalists.

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steveplace
If the market tanks again, we can rise against the shortsellers for destroying
the economy. As for now, this is paranoia and is ignorant of how markets
operate.

Further info: <http://bit.ly/8M0Sj7> \-- From The Big Picture (Ritholtz)

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crimreaper
You know there's another side to this story.

The same shorts that have attacked Overstock's CEO similarly attacked the CEO
of Fairfax Financial:

"According to court documents, the hedge fund companies allegedly retained an
obscure operative named Spyro Contogouris to drive down Fairfax’s share price,
a task he went about with alacrity. In 2005, he’s said to have approached the
company’s former CFO, claiming (falsely)that he’d been deputized by the FBI to
obtain evidence of financial improprieties. He is thought to be the author of
a widely circulated 30-page letter that, among other things, compared Watsa to
the convicted fraudster Martin Frankel. (It was even sent to the priest of
Watsa’s church, St. Paul’s Anglican on Bloor.) In 2006, several false rumours
began circulating: one claimed that the RCMP were pursuing Watsa; another said
that they were about to raid Fairfax’s office; yet another claimed he’d placed
his assets in his wife’s name and fled the country. By then, the company’s
stock had tumbled from highs in the $400 range to less than $100 a share."

full article:
[http://www.grahamanddoddsville.net/wordpress/Files/Gurus/Pre...](http://www.grahamanddoddsville.net/wordpress/Files/Gurus/Prem%20Watsa/Prem%20Watsa%20-%20The%202%20Billion%20Dollar%20Man%20-%20Toronto%20Live%20-%2004-2009.pdf)

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wooster
Forgive me if I'm skeptical of someone whose account was created 17 minutes
ago and has only made 1 comment.

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crimreaper
Right, I created the account because it's not exactly popular to defend
someone like Patrick Byrne (which proves my point since I was down-voted, even
though I provided evidence of the kind of tactics that are used by certain
short sellers... go figure)

I'm just saying that short sellers use tactics that are just as bad as what
Byrne used here (I don't condone making a fake facebook profile, pretexting,
etc).

But the fact is that in the Fairfax case, they engaged in a pretty complicated
campaign aimed at driving down the stock. One of the method was to feed
stories to journalists who specialize in "financial fraud".

Overstock already received $5M of settlement from Rocker Partners:
"Overstock.com (OSTK) this afternoon said that Rocker Partners, an investment
firm now known as Cooper River Partners, will pay the company $5 million to
settle long-standing litigation alleging that Rocker and others engaged in
“libel, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage and
violations of California’s unfair business practices act."

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diN0bot
> "I created the account because it's not exactly popular to..."

by becoming anonymous you show that this isn't important. if something is
important to you then all the more reason to stand behind it as yourself. your
real-life karma is taking hits when you hide behind anonymity. man up.

