Beyond Stupid
TV stock tips are for chumps
“Media corporations have a civic responsibility not only to prevent fraud and financial abuse, but also to not corrupt or degrade our culture.” – Charles Pickering, former U.S. appellate judge.
Andrew Left, a frequent bloviator on CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg Television, bagged a quick buck by trash-talking Beyond Meat.
″$BYND has become Beyond Stupid,” he tweeted on May 17, 2019. “We expect $BYND to go back to $65 on earnings.”
Ten days earlier, Left, 54, allegedly told a colleague the opposite: That he expected Beyond Meat to go to $100.
The shares were trading around $87 when Left hammered the stock like a chicken-fried steak. But he was so well-known for his pronouncements – thanks to regular TV appearances – that Beyond Meat stock plunged. Within seven minutes, Left allegedly dumped most of his short positions for a tidy profit.
This is but one example in an 18-count indictment that the Justice Department announced on Friday, accusing Left of making at least $16 million in ill-gotten stock gains from March 2018 to October 2023.
“This defendant allegedly used his platform as a securities commentator to manipulate the markets and enrich himself in the process,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a press release.
Left’s attorney, James Spertus, says Left plans to fight the charges. "There is no crime here," he said in an email to Reuters.
What’s Beyond Stupid is why anyone who would listen to this guy.
What’s Beyond Even Stupider is that the financial media regularly platforms such stock-tipping blabbermouths with no way of vetting how they actually trade.
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