Cytodyn Inc (CYDY)

[Dr Zaius]

On January 4, 2007, the SEC charged Defendant Joseph Spiegel of Buyersstrike with securities fraud in connection with his activity when he was a portfolio manager for Spinner Global Technology Fund, Ltd. (“SGTF”), a $200 million hedge fund. See Complaint, SEC v. Joseph J. Spiegel

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2007/comp19956.pdf
(Jan. 4, 2007).

According to the SEC Complaint, Spiegel “engaged in an unlawful trading scheme . . . in violation of the antifraud and registration provisions of the federal securities laws."

Why would anybody take him seriously or think he has a shred of credibility? His attacks against CytoDyn are not journalism, they are hit pieces coordinated with a network of short sellers.

Spiegel has been engaging in a fraudulent scheme to profit from illegal and manipulative short selling in CytoDyn’s stock. He does so by coordinating the publication of false and misleading “hit pieces,” masquerading as stock “research” articles, with manipulative trading and quoting activity in CytoDyn’s stock. Spiegel conspires to drive down the price of stock by timing the publication of false and misleading hit pieces with illicit, manipulative trading tactics and quoting activity, including “naked” short sales.

Short sellers like Spiegel are stock traders who sell stock that they do not own to make a profit when the price of a stock goes down. In brief, a short seller locates stock to borrow, sells it for the current market price, and then hopes the price of that stock will decline so he can purchase it in the open market at a cheaper price before returning it to the borrower.

A short seller is required to locate stock to borrow before selling it to ensure that he has a reasonable belief that the stock can be delivered on a specific date. While short selling itself is not illegal, “naked short selling”—selling stock short without first borrowing shares—is plainly illegal under the federal (and many state) securities laws. Naked short selling is sometimes coupled with efforts to fraudulently manipulate the market to drive down the stock price because short sellers need to be certain that the price of the stock will decrease. Most commonly, these efforts take the form of disseminating false negative information about the company to the investing public. If the short seller successfully convinces investors that the company represents a worthless investment, plummeting the company’s stock price, the short seller can walk away with significant profits, while the company’s financial well-being and reputation are severely and irreparably damaged. This type of fraudulent scheme has been an unfortunate element of the public stock markets for decades.

With the rise of the Internet and the advent of social media, short selling—and attendant market manipulation—has developed into a complex, highly sophisticated enterprise. Once a short seller establishes a short position (i.e., once he locates shares to borrow and sells a stock), a network of individuals goes to work, writing, publishing, and promoting what appear to be legitimate works of journalism aimed at exposing negative facts about a company to the investing community, but are in fact complete fabrications. The conspirators benefit from the anonymity permitted by Internet-based publishing, and their “hit pieces” reach a vast audience almost instantaneously by linking to the articles on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

In conjunction with disseminating false or misleading negative information, short attackers engage in a host of deceptive and illegal trading practices that are designed to artificially manipulate stock prices. These tactics include “naked short selling,” “spoofing,” “layering” and “wash trades,”—all of which are plainly illegal under the federal (and many state) securities laws.