Agreed. To me this is a story of lack of professional common sense. When this guy spoke, he spoke as someone with (implied) inside knowledge of both his employer and his industry.

He should have either stressed he did not have inside knowledge and this was his personal opinion, or he should have said nothing. The problem with the first option is that he did have inside knowledge.

Put another way, if he had said something that had affected stock price, he would probably face criminal charges.

That's reason enough to shut the heck up, bite his lip, and let the internet be wrong. All of us with inside knowledge about our employers (specially if our employer is a public company) do that routinely.