I'm sticking to my story below. I think short funds feel they got shafted by MW yesterday and now brought in the heavy artillery, so to speak, (Herbie can only be used sparingly in this saga) to try and make some sense out of all of this. His article is the best they could come up with, which gets back to my point. The latest MW report was not to help shorts, but to try and distance Carson Block from the liability associated with fabricating the spreadsheets. Very encouraging that this is all the shorts have to offer as a come-back, btw. JMHO.
My guess is that this last report is almost entirely to try and exonerate MW from as much legal responsibility as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if they got some "informal" phone calls/information requests from regulators and/or lawyers and Carson Block is now trying to publicly distance himself from all the fabrication of evidence. He might be starting to feel the heat. Maybe his wife is starting to freak out.
I can see no other reason to release the phone call. The call in itself is extremely damaging to the short case, but it DOES introduce a third party (CCME saleswoman) that seemingly fed MW faulty bus lists. She tries to point to a "misunderstanding" in how to use those reports, which is probably what MW would want regulators or suitors to believe. No one can be sued for a good faith misunderstanding. Everyone gets off the hook when that happens, even though it resulted in a half a billion dollar market cap loss (sorry, says he!).
This supposed third party confirmation debunks the current view that Carson Block (on his wife's computer), made up the entire thing and attributes the blame to this "misunderstanding" between the "CCME source" and MW. This episode shifts the focus to this "mystery CCME saleswoman" away from MW and Carson Block. (IMO, he probably had someone call in and and fabricated the whole CCME woman thing as well, making this even more difficult to prove, but it does accomplish the task of moving the liability away from himself).
I know this sounds very convoluted, but I believe this is how these types of people think. They have to stay one step ahead of the game, always. And they don't just release such a stupid research report for no underlying reason. Not someone that engineered the whole Chinese New years, pre-earnings black-out period short attack. I don't believe that he is at the same time, both extremely crafty and supremely stupid. Doesn't make sense to me.
