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Comment by photos_victim | Hacker News Reader

You live in a parallel universe. Short sellers peddling fake news are largely mythical. Virtually every SEC enforcement action has been against pump-and-dump scams dealing in false positive analysis. The short side is just realistic and they don’t spread rumors, because it’s better for them when the bad news is a surprise to other investors. SEC enforcement against short sellers for public statements are incredibly rare.

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> The short side is just realistic and they don’t spread rumors, because it’s better for them when the bad news is a surprise to other investors.

I'm no stock market expert but surely that's only true if the short sellers are right and the stock does lose a lot of value? Whereas if the stock keeps going up the short seller has motive to try and crash the stock price?

Seriously ? You do realize that legal framework for a public company's officers as it relates to the company they are managing and a random dude on the street who holds a short position is very different?

I'm not talking about company officers or other insiders. I'm talking about stock promotion scams, which are the great majority of SEC enforcement actions. Consider for example the SEC action taken against biotech penny stock promoters last Friday.

"The pump-and-dump scheme, allegedly orchestrated by a Frost associate named Barry Honig, took place between 2013 and 2018. According to the SEC, Honig coordinated an effort to buy up shares at a discount, pay a third party to write laudatory articles on Wall Street forums, and then sell those shares for a profit."

I am not suggesting the news is fake on either side. The most effective spin is accurate with the distortion being the amount of coverage it gets.

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