I'm watching this Cuban / Weiss debate. I'n trying to learm , trying to figure where i stand..I think this debate / blogs are top shelf stuff..But accusing Weiss of pimping his book is kind of silly and i'm sure Mark Cuban can do alot better........
Let the debate continue. I find it very worthwhile..
Odd that he opted out?
Not at all, I'm afraid:
http://www.texasgigs.com/news/20...net-true-music/
Thanks for the great follow-up.
Cuban's front-running is all about Mark just being Mark, so he can profit off of others work, damn the torpedoes.
He thinks that he is all about being the greatest businessman in the world. He thinks he can talk his way through and around anything. Then, when he gets caught - he attacks. He did it here. He did it to TexasGigs.com over their HDNet DVD-making and not telling the bands he "used" earlier this month.
He's simply a billionaire used-car salesman, with a haircut to match.
But did you read the article? Ethical or not, they did their research and appear to have nailed this company. It's an interesting thought ... would reporters be more aggressive in investigating corrupt companies if they stood to gain financially from the company's corruption? Cuban could be creating a new form of investigative journalism here.
No, he's not creating a new form of investigative journalism. One of the dumbest things Cuban has said is that he's doing something "new" here or has a new "business model."
There's nothing new or unique about front-running market-sensitive journalism. Every editor and reporter in the business knows you can make money doing that. The difference is not that Cuban has come up with a "new idea" but that he is more unscrupulous than the typical journalist or even the typical publisher.
So now, to compound matters, he celebrates his own lack of ethics in the same way as Patrick Byrne "celebrated" getting that SEC subpoena. These are two very different men (Cuban actually created wealth, for example) but I think they are similar in their arrogance and cluelessness on the subject of financial journalism.
I think you are missing an important distinction here, which is the distinction between digging through a company's financial statements, and using info found against them by reporting the findings, vs the regular reporting is "company X said Y on their conference call, and reporter Z" reports it.
So, what he's doing is new to reporting, but not new in the world of forensic accounting. I'm sure plenty of other financial analysts could have done the same thing as Sharesluth, but very few reporters could. They simply don't have the time, resources, or knowledge to get the same info. Also, traditional reporters forge relationships with PR people in companies, and are allowed info (positive and negative) that is not yet truly public, in terms of product launches, which can move the stock. This simply requires access, and not any specialized knowlege.
So, yeah, I say Mark Cuban is doing something new. He's turning forensic accounting into a new media stream. I've never seen this level of reporting on CNBC, or the WSJ, or from any true reporting media channel.
It's fair to say the distinction is small when the genre is new. The activites Sharesleuth has found on XETHANOL counts as low hanging fruit. But in the future, it will require more than you can expect from the talking heads on CNBC to find this info.
Barron's has been doing that for years, old chap. Ethically.
Uh, Barrons?
No, they haven't been delivering the info for free. And if they have, then why all the fuss about what Mark Cuban is doing?
Hasn't Barrons already reported it, thus driving down the stock, eliminating any gains Cuban might have made?
Even if they missed XNE (understandable, there's lots of stocks to investigate), the "freeness" of the information is what sets them apart.
There would be less complaints about ethical violations when buying stocks from a broker if Mr. Broker didn't make money whether he picks right or wrong.
Mags are the same way; they make money on the mag sale, whether what they publish is correct or not.
In Cuban's case, he only makes money if he's right, and takes a pretty good bath if he's wrong. That seems fair.
His track record will also guide his gains. One miss, and nobody will trust his info anymore. Again, that seems fair.
If you can't afford the price of a copy of Barron's, you shouldn't be in the market.
I think you are confusing commentary and journalism. I also see no reason that a speculator can't tell us about his business, transparently, just as a journalist can tell us about his business. Transparency rules. May I note to you that George Wills didn't understand transparency when he boosted Conrad Black's activities while being paid by Black. It seems to me that a responsible journalist would not diss the importance of transparency for a reader to make his own choices. It also seems to me that you and Sorkin are jealous for dwelling on what the public obviously recognizes as responsible, informed commentary by Cuban.
Speaking of transparency -- once again, I am dumbfounded that so many people apparently just can't see how sleazy this is. It's not so difficult, really. I won't repeat the reasons, since they have been laid out pretty clearly here and elsewhere, and people are either too dense to understand them (which is very dense indeed), or they just don't care. I do think that a lot of this is just Cuban fanboys who think he can do no wrong. Even so, how they can read his "explanations," -- which don't address the central complaint, make arguments that have nothing to do with the issue at hand ("Gary Weiss promotes books, so I can do whatever scummy thing I want" ????), and are just rambling, disconnected, nonsensical screeds -- and come away thinking he's proved some point? Are these fans just thick-skulled, ballcap-wearing, aging fratboys who are happy one of their own made good, or what? I am truly mystified.
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