mark cuban

Mark Cuban Wins Big Against the SEC

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Almost four years ago, I wrote an article for AOL’s Daily Finance site about the Securities and Exchange Commission witch hunt against Mark Cuban.

The SEC filed insider trading charges against him in 2008 after he sold 600,000 shares of stock in Mamma.com. They said that he was insider trading because he sold his shares after receiving information that there was going to be another offering of stock by the company.

Mark Cuban didn’t ask for the information on the stock offering. It was provided to him because the company wanted him to invest more money. He didn’t want the information, and he knew that it would devalue the stock he already held. So Cuban declined and sold his stock. The stock then dropped in value, and in ran the SEC. Continue reading

Mark Cuban and Sharesleuth.com: Good or bad idea?

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Wired Magazine featured an article on Mark Cuban and his Sharesleuth.com website. In theory, it kind of sounds like a good idea. Mark and company think that the media has given up critically examining public companies. They think there are many red flags with companies, but that the press never reports a lot of them. They believe positive press has taken over.

So Mark Cuban started Sharesleuth to “investigate” public companies. In its first year, negative reports on two companies were posted: Xethanol and Utek. Indeed, four weeks after the reports were published, each company’s stock was down 39% and 36%, respectively. Continue reading