Hacker News Reader

Comment by stevievee | Hacker News Reader

This is too well organized and presented. My guess is that this has to be financed in some part by a group of short-sellers.

They made a rookie mistake though - AMD is plagued by day-traders and algorithms who couldn't give a damn about the fundamentals.

Boy the future of capital markets is looking grim.

View on HN

> They made a rookie mistake though - AMD is plagued by day-traders and algorithms who couldn't give a damn about the fundamentals.

Seriously. AMD stock is trading up 3+% at the time of my comment, and it's climbed since the disclosures this morning.

Something tells me this backfired.

Discl: I've been long AMD for a long frickin' time.

In the long term, the market is a weighing machine. Time will tell.

A new twist on an old game. I hear people ask why short-selling exists, but’s a good check against corruption but prone to it’s own abuses. Citron Research (a short-sell shop) is a good example of this— they savaged companies like NQ Mobile, Lumber Liquidators, etc. and make a bundle doing it.

The security angle is a fascinating and concerning new development, however. That said it may encourage more secure practices (as opposed to theater) through the hardware/software lifecycle in response to serious fundamental design problems.

It will also serve to increase the premium on 0days...

> It will also serve to increase the premium on 0days...

I strongly doubt that. I've seen incredibly serious vulnerabilities I've reported firsthand have little to no impact on a company's valuation when publicized.

But did you create an entire website about the vulnerability, including graphics and headline-friendly names, as well as sending out briefings to major media outlets ahead of the disclosure? Because that's what this group did

Admittedly no, but considering AMD is up ~3.85% as of this writing, I'm not sure I'd have benefitted from doing so.

Just look at what Citron Research did to Shopify last year. They tanked the stock from $120 to $93 just based on false accusations that they put out in a "report".

Now Shopify is now closer to $150...so their plan worked.

> just based on false accusations that they put out in a "report".

If it's false information, isn't that classic stock manipulation? I thought for it to be legal to make money on the stock it had to be both accurate and publicly available (if potentially hard to put together)?

They make claims that are demonstrably...stupid. I don't know if there's a better, more nuanced word to use here. It's trolling in broad daylight from what I can tell.

Watch the video and see for yourself: http://citronresearch.com/citron-exposes-the-dark-side-of-sh...

That video by itself tanked the stock for many many weeks, until they finally reported quarterly results and it started climbing again.

I'm glad the CEO didn't feed the trolls by acknowledging this report in any depth.

Also shows how irrational the stock market is in the short term.

Citron Research? Total hack and the premise that they provide the market a value is a stretch at best. Sometimes right and lots of times incredibly wrong but makes money on investors panicking immediately.

Do you know where the line is between what e.g. Citron Research is doing and what is considered slander? (I assume they walk a very thin line in order to not get sued)

Their Shopify video [1] for example is not the typical „research report“ with lots of specifics but more of a personal opinion with rather broad accusations.

[1] http://citronresearch.com/citron-exposes-the-dark-side-of-sh...

I agree on the premise of moving the market but they don't necessarily need to be only short sellers, they could have hedged both ways and still made money.

They could have exercised puts if it went down (which it did in the morning) or bought stock/calls both before the site release and in the case of it going down because they knew it wouldn't be a concern or dispelled by AMD.

Unless, this is truly a flaw and in that case, they can still buy more puts and just wait for AMDs official response.

What if I told you you can lose money on straddles and bear spreads.

Agreed on the losing money part, in general, but in a stock as volatile as AMD, I feel like there is an opportunity for this type of action, may not be the case for others.

Also, as nothing has been verified about the report (from AMD), there is still the potential for this to move either way.

Great username BTW

I can vet the guys who published this.

This is legit, and they haven't published anything that can be used maliciously.

The security flaws aren't really the issue. The way they did it seems like they have an interest to manipulate the stock.

This is too well organized and presented.

For what?

My guess is that this has to be financed in some part by a group of short-sellers.

What evidence do you have of that other than 'too well presented'? It sounds like a conspiracy theory, not a guess.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com