Patrick Byrne Speaks, Lawyers Salivate

Oops!

Overstock.com's dipsy-doodle CEO Patrick Byrne, appearing on CNBC on Friday, painted a glorious picture of Overstock's Christmas season, but let something slip: everything was going well except "gross margins."

Oops!

Henry Blodget picks up the story:

If Byrne planned to mention the margin compression before the CNBC shoot, he apparently didn't tell his lawyers, because the company rushed to release an after-the-fact Reg FD press release this morning reiterating the comments.

Overstock was down 21% today, on heavy volume, as a result.

The Overstock press release was a real piece of work. Get the title: "Overstock.com Comments on Patrick Byrne's CNBC Interview." When was the last time you heard about a company "commenting" on its own CEO's interviews?

Blodget's piece was entitled,"CEO Byrne Speaks, Lawyers Panic." His lawyers, perhaps, but the lawyers suing him, at the SEC and elsewhere, are salivating.

In another appearance on Friday, on Fox, Byrne suggested that people not buy his stock, and said that it was being "manipulated."

That's for sure.

© 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.