Jonathan Lebed: Stock Manipulator, S.E.C. Nemesis, and 15 (2001)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
it's almost as gobsmacking that the kid's Yahoo Finance stock pitches are completely indistiguishable from the blather on CNBC that occurs every single day of the year. WHO THE FUCK IS TRADING ON STOCK TIPS FROM YAHOO FINANCE MESSAGE BOARDS?
As simplistic as the mother's complaints are, had the SEC called her and explained what pump-and-dump is and why adults who understand what it is go to prison for doing it, they could have saved everyone a lot of grief and money.
Not "is"; "was". This was during the dotcom bubble. A lot of people were paying attention to Yahoo finance boards, most of them pretty unsophisticated investors (obviously). Everybody knew someone who had made $10,000s to $MMs on the stock market and nobody wanted to be the only sucker to miss out--like the teachers in this story, taking stock picks from their students. Pretty crazy times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFcgwZ3xjJg Fox Business host confronts him (2010)
http://www.northjersey.com/news/97250879_Still_touting_stock...
Stock prices reflect the expected future dividends of a stock given current information. If a person intentionally gives wrong or misleading information to the public, and this results in shift in the stock price, then this could be market manipulation.
The author is correct in stating that it is hard to distinguish a person giving their honest opinion about a stock they own, and market manipulation. However, that doesn't mean that the concept of market manipulation is ill-defined.
This teenager figured out exactly what was happening in the stock market in the late '90s up to the 1st dotcom crash (IMO the 2nd crash of Internet momentum stocks is coming soon). The kid was very wise for his years. The SEC, on the other hand, appeared to be clueless clowns.
I was, however, disappointed to see the links here to the kid's recent activity. It looks like he's simply continued his promotion of penny stocks. I hate to sound cliched, but "meh". I see a lot of wasted potential.
Why? Because this isn't 1999. His activities can't be nearly as profitable. There's too much noise on the Internet, he's now a little fish in a very big pond.
But what do I know? Not much. In 1999 I was an American "salaryman", watching incredulously while stocks levitated almost to the moon, and yet I wasn't smart enough to make a few bucks speculating before the whole thing imploded.