More Bad News From a Naked Shorting Poster Child

Word has just crept over the financial newswires that Novastar Financial, a leading poster child of the anti-naked-shorting nutjobs, will lay off 37% of its staff -- 500 employees.

Damn those naked short-sellers! The company says it is taking this step because of tough conditions in the markets, but any reader of stock market conspiracy websites, such as Phil Saunders' Sanitycheck.com, knows that they are too blame.

By the way, isn't that what companies do before they go down for the count? I sure hope not.

Novastar was pushed unmercifully on stock message boards by Saunders a/k/a "Bob O'Brien," a former used medical equipment salesman from California. He also set up a creepy stock-pumping website called NFI-info.net. Saunders has never apologized to his victims for pumping this stock.

Saunders' paranoid rants turned out to be such an embarrassment that even Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com, stopped hyping the "sanitycheck" site on the Overstock website. Since then its readership has dropped off to practically nothing, according to Alexa.

Investors who listened to this nut got their clock cleaned. I guess that's what happens when you get your stock tips from former used medical equipment salesmen who cower behind pseudonyms. ({I think the "Easter bunny" handle would have been a tipoff to any sane person.) Hey, if you want to lose money properly, you should take stock tips from the pros! At least you know who they are, so you can sue them.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.



-----------

Wall Street Versus America was published by Penguin USA on April 6.
Click here for its Amazon.com listing and here for more information on the book, from my web site, gary-weiss.com.