Now this is amusing. Someone managed to get a fake press release onto BusinessWire. Which suggested there would be a $9 a share takover bid for WeWork:
Exactly and precisely what happened is still open. But a very useful thought is that someone sent a fake press release which BusinessWire then published. That was enough to trigger the – very shortlived – WeWork stock price rally. We can assume that those who sent it were long WeWork stock and sold out during that rally. If they tried to make a few tens of thousands of $ they’ll probably get away with the market manipulation too. Trade is of such size that a small profit cannot be filtered out from the general ebb and flow. What’s more likely is that a large position was taken in short dated call options. And that will be found – we’d guarantee to you that the SEC is, right now, combing those trading records. When found so will the perpetrators. And we don’t fancy their chances of either keeping any trading profits or, to be honest, out of jail.
Makes me want to applaud the effort and ingenuity. While still and also decrying the obvious criminality of it.
What is illegal about someone sending a press release out? Especially one ‘suggesting’ something and not stating it. After all if the firm had done any due diligence it would have been ignored and the options would have lost money.
The folks allegedly making the bid weren’t the folk who sent the press release out. Deliberate market manipulation from the people who did send it out therefore.