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Explain to me the case that it could be considered as such?

• blunte 9y ago
  When you are such a big name in finance, your public statements can be judged as attempts to influence the market. And if you furthermore pay lobbyists, do advertising, and give many presentations, it is clearly going to have an impact.
  • valuearb 9y ago
    We live in a free society that values free speech. We should be cautious when limiting it. In the case of market influence, it should be fine as long as there is full disclosure. In fact insider trading is perfectly legal as long as it's done with disclosure statements.
    • blunte 9y ago
      Fortunately, the legal system does sometimes consider intent. While the letter of the law may be followed, if the intent is obviously against the spirit of the law, the courts have some leeway to judge accordingly.
  • prostoalex 9y ago
    Activist shorting is a cottage industry and has its fair share of participants on both sides of the bet. People like Ackman or Cohen or Left are far from being followed and blindly copied, like Warren Buffett or even Jim Cramer. The followers realize that the shorts act first and go public second, therefore any potential upside is likely to be already priced in, leaving very slim pickings for a tag-along investor. The opponents at the same time will try to orchestrate a short squeeze, and they are in somewhat more beneficial position. Not only the short squeezers act on public information (the size of the short interest), they need to find just one factual error in short's thesis and then play that up. The activist short, once public, has to be 100% right with each and every statement - any sign of weakness is just an open invitation to join a short squeeze.