At this point, it seems like Apple and Amazon have hard facts and Bloomberg has more tales of "he said"/"she said" and didn't cross check. The journalists halved Supermicro stock value, they have a responsibility to prove this actually happened.
One guy named as a source in the original article does not accept the story as written.
To this point Bloomberg has presented 0 evidence of any of this. You have to understand how the burden of proof works, you can't throw a rock in the pond and expect others to jump in and retrieve it. Bloomberg made the claim, Bloomberg has to support it. Until they do I will take everything they write/claim with a tablespoon of salt. From my perspective it may very well be an attempt to hit Supermicro and nothing more.
The fact that Apple or Amazon are expected to show evidence that a yet unsubstantiated claim from Bloomberg is not real shows how low people set the bar for what reliable information means.
"You have to understand how the burden of proof works, [...]"
I don't HAVE to do anything you say, thank god.
But in all honesty not understanding how something works makes your opinion on the topic about as valuble as a turd in the rain.
Understanding how things work before attempting to pass judgement is “just” a matter of common sense and decency. But since no superior ordered them and you don’t have to have them, here we are.
When asked what, exactly, he found strange about Bloomberg's claims, Fitzpatrick said, "It was surprising to me that in a scenario where I would describe these things and then he would go and confirm these and 100% of what I described was confirmed by sources."
You could take that to mean "Bloomberg took a scary hypothetical and pretended it was real," but if they did have other sources telling them "There are these backdoor chips in servers" this is exactly what you'd expect Bloomberg to do: go to a security expert and ask "Hey, does this really work?"
It doesn't particularly read like evidence one way or another to me.
Technically possible doesn't mean it happened. You could be punched by your wife, does that mean she did punch you? Sorry for the inappropriate analogy, but you get the idea.
I'm not a CFP, but you should probably sell your Supermicro holdings now; they aren't gonna recover.
That a company's share price is already bruised or disreputable has no material impact here. It doesn't matter if a company has pre-existing and systemic financial problems; that doesn't mean we can be cavalier about publishing news that will wipe out half its value in a day. This kind of cavalier approach to company valuation isn't suitable for considering the consequences of erroneous stories.
Moreover I think you'll find that regardless of how much you believe the stock is worthless, there is actually an objectively quantifiable loss that was suffered here. If you still believe the stock is worthless even after this reduction in share price then by all means short it. But you can't speak for the entire market, which clearly demonstrates that many parties disagree with you on Supermicro's valuation. Presumably some of those parties will be a little miffed if the Bloomberg story turns out to be largely incorrect - you can't just shrug and tell them, "Hey that stock is worthless, you shouldn't have owned any of it anyway."
If you think there's a "fair market value" of a company that can't meet basic financial regulatory and accounting practices that is anywhere above the price of toilet paper, then I suggest you don't put any money in the stock market.
Nobody really thinks it's worth anything but the large holders don't have to write down yet and probably are diversified across the industry. The market cap is like half a bil -- that's _tiny_ for a company as big as SuperMicro...even at the bil it was before the article.
The stock is garbage.
Hard facts? Which ones? An independent review of all server hardware by an external auditor? Call me stupid but I don't think companies can audit themselves if a lot of money is at stake. Not saying Apple is wrong, but for now we still have "This isn't the case because we say so, believe us." nothing more.
It will be interesting if Bloomberg has a followup or if they fold.
I wouldn't take anything as certainty at this point, not even close.