Soon after they started business, I was a customer and purchased lots of things from them. Then the customer service became a joke. Warranties meant nothing to them I quit doing business with them and have never been to their site again. On the subject of CEOs complaining about short sellers, etc...I invested in a company that the stock just kept dropping and dropping and dropping and the CEO always said it was because of short sellers....stupid me, I believed him. The short sellers knew something was wrong and performed correctly in that situation. The company is out of business and I have a worthless piece of paper. Never again will I believe any officer of any public company! Are the short sellers right this time?...Only time will tell!
Won't be around to determine if shorts are right longterm, looking to take my profits next week and looking for the next score.
This morning I got an e-Mail from overstock.com inviting me to visit their auction site. I did, and found their site to be lacking in comparison with eBay, both i terms of layout and product selection.
I wonder if Dr. Byrne has outsmarted himself into a securities fraud violation by buying stock in the open market while in possession of material inside info, namely that OSTK would file a lawsuit against the shorts. Not sure on the timing but it certainly seems material to me. We'll see. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I've read Jeff Matthews a lot and he seems very credible to me. He makes devastating attacks on Bryne's business acumen. I've yet to see them rebutted. Basically, he describes OSTK as a crappy also ran that is controlled by a creative stock promoter. Kind of sounds like WCOM back in the day. I'll also point out that this is just the kind of expensive , open-ended litigation that companies pay extortion to plaintiff class action lawyers to get out of. I can't imagine that OSTK is better served blowing millions on legal fees than spending it on their business. Or that Byrne and his execs don't have better things to do than sit in depositions. If he thinks this is his chance to really hurt Rocker, I have to think he has been poorly advised. Rocker will hit back. Hard. Byrne will rue the day he filed this lawsuit.
A $3 - $4 pop suggests that it is very material. The whole situation seems odd and very funny to me. I couldn't help myself but enter the fray with a small speculative position myself.
I spoke with a regulator on this issue who told me that an industry insider told him, "this has got to stop! it has gone far enough". If the guys making the money see a problem, what's that say?????????????? As traders, what I suggest you do is research Anthony "Emir" Elgindy. "Tony" is sitting in a jail cell being sized up by the love lorn as we speak (write). You'll see his network, the convictions, the companies he's destroyed. I make no judgement, render no opinion on OSTK. I'm an EBAY slug myself. However, I can tell you from my calls Byrne is firmly committed to solving the problem, and it's a huge problem. | I go back with fat Carole at the WSJ about four years. I'd give her stories to research, and they'd come back as crap, favoring the shorts every single time. I had a source at the journal tell me that story sources at the WSJ would complain about her tactics. There are other big names at major publications that will probably be made public in the coming weeks. I've waited and worked tirelessly for this for years. We needed Byrne to come forth with his money and talents ( and fearlessness) to come forward and fight the fight. I need to make some money back that was stolen from me. but it's more than money. It's the difference between right and wrong. Now, rather than poo-pah what you don't know., just put it on your screen. If I am right, there will be a ton of others that will be squeezed next. And because I just one hell of a guy, I'll point them out so we all can make money, but, more than that, I want to punish the Naked Shorts. . My prediction is the Sith and his buddies skip the country (ref Badian vs. SEC, Badian DOJ arrests 12/03) with the money, and leave the stupid brokers holding the short postions (MJK SECURITIES FAILURE), and the brokers have to cover (FISERVE 10mm loss, two years ago, forcing them from clearing.). It doesn't matter to me who buys in, as long as they do it. As flakey as Patrick appears to be, my sources tell me his heart is in the right spot, and he was coerced into this by thuggery. Now go do what you have to do. But as traders, what more do you want in August but volatility and action. Brothers, you got it.
http://www.nypost.com/business/51168.htm August 14, 2005 -- Patrick Byrne blew a gasket last week. Byrne, the chief executive officer and founder of Web retailer Overstock.com, took to the airwaves and Internet on Friday and very memorably discussed the lawsuit his company filed against a local hedge fund and an independent research firm. It was arguably the strangest performance by a corporate executive in recent memory. During the Webcast, he discussed a wide-ranging, interlocking series of relationships that, he asserted, actively conspired to depress the price of Overstock's equity. Not content with arguing that the stock dropped to $46.87 from a high of $77.18 in January due to misplaced beliefs or fears, Byrne blasted a "Sith Lord" that, he claimed, coordinated the actions of several hedge funds and much of the American financial press. He declined to identify the "Sith Lord," but described him as "a master criminal from the 1980s." In the middle of the discussion, Byrne said that the SEC is informally investigating the company but declined to elaborate. As if that wasn't strange enough, Byrne entitled his analysis of the so-called conspiracy, "The Miscreants Ball," a word play on the famous Drexel Burnham investor conference known as "The Predators Ball." He outlined a scenario whereby Rocker Partners, a hedge fund that generally shorts stocks it deems overpriced, fed misleading research from Gradient Analytics â an independent research firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz. â to a gullible and conflicted media. In turn, the media, including organizations like The Street.com, CBS MarketWatch, Forbes Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, did the bidding of Rocker and wrote "hatchet jobs," he claimed. David Rocker, general partner of Rocker Partners, was traveling and unavailable to comment. Central to Byrne's analysis of media culpability was the alleged cooperation among traditionally bitter rivals. For example, he argued that in February, MarketWatch's columnist Herb Greenberg stopped writing about Overstock because "the assignment got passed" to Street.com Real Money columnist Jeff Matthews. Matthews, who runs a hedge fund, RAM Partners, would not comment other than to note that the linkage to Greenberg was "incredibly strange." He added that he did not know any "Sith Lord." Matthews, in addition to running a hedge fund, also runs a blog. In it, Matthews criticized Byrne for being excessively concerned about the role of short-sellers, and noted that "Byrne exhibits all the signs of a CEO with something to hide." While noting that he worked with Rocker a decade ago, Matthews also criticized Byrne for spending so much time discussing short-sellers. He has no position in the company. Aiding the multifaceted conspiracy, Byrne said, are the conflicts of regulators. The CEO singled out Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, because he went to law school with Jim Cramer, an owner of Street.com, and had been an investor in a fund run by Cramer. A spokesman did not return a call inquiring whether Spitzer knew of any "Sith Lord" in this context. Those were among the more lucid components of his presentation. In one memorable sequence, he connected The Wall Street Journal columnist Jesse Eisinger to the harassment of a 70-year-old woman in Las Vegas. Later, he alluded to a baton being passed to Carol Redmond of Dow Jones Newswires, and began a discussion of how her French background affects her ability to cover Overstock.com accurately. Redmond, Byrne said, took the phrase "he took a bath" to mean he frequented "gay bathhouses." In an attempt to clear up any misconceptions, he said he did not. Later, Byrne argued that "as a libertarian, I don't care if anyone thinks I'm gay." Appropos of nothing, he also said he wasn't "a coke head." The Journal's Eisinger declined comment, as did MarketWatch's Greenberg. Redmond was unavailable to comment. A spokesman for Overstock said that Byrne was committed to standing up for the company and "righting wrongs where he sees them." The presentations, the spokesman said, was not part of the long-range public relations strategy of the company. He said that Byrne, to his knowledge, is not currently under any psychiatric care and that he was sober when he gave the presentation. Byrne's lawyer, Wes Christian, said that he understood how many reporters and investors could be confused or dismayed by the presentation. He said his later appearance on CNBC made his case better.