May 9, 2008
Having been a long term investor in Force Protection, Inc., I have watched what appears to be a serious abuse of naked shorting of this stock. While I cannot possibly have direct evidence of who, when, and how, it does appear that there has been collusion by internet reporters, internet investment "Personalities," and brokers, to force the price down, through misinformation, for personal gain. Because these press investment rolls are intermingled, they appear to have conspired to use their Freedom of the Press pass to drive the stock price down, while abusing their brokerage positions to make financial gain.
This stock fell to a great extent because it was overvalued, but I would contend that several well known persons and internet investment news organizations have conspired to manipulate the situation to their gain.
As an ordinary investor in US companies, I along with others, am shafted by this abuse of legal loopholes, and the lack of prosecution of the abusers, by the SEC.