Fined For Bogus Stock News Article

from the how-illegal-is-it? dept

A guy in California has been fined for posting a fake Reuters article on a Yahoo! message board last year (including real bylines) about non-existent negative Goldman Sachs coverage of a stock. Lots of people reading the message board seemed to believe the fake report, and sold off shares of the stock, allowing the guy to profit to the tune of $350 - significantly less than the $25,000 fine. Still, while the guy was "manipulating" the stock, you do have to wonder just how gullible people are to simply buy a Yahoo message board post as a Reuters report without looking elsewhere. It's almost to the point where they deserve whatever losses they got hit with.
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  • identicon
    thecaptain, 9 Mar 2004 @ 12:03pm

    Wizard's First Rule...

    People are stupid.

    At least THIS guy didn't profit from it.

    /sick and tired of hearing about small fines/settlements for people who made hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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