Poor Journalism Creates Get Rich Quick Attitudes: One of the Causes for Sirius XM Price Drop

By Relmor Demitrius

The truth is well hidden in a web of lies.  Best way to hide the truth is to present it daily, right in the open, and then mock it.  One of the worst things anyone can do when trying to figure out facts is to be bombarded with 100 opinions, half truths, and biased comments from amateurs who don’t care about you or their integrity as an author or analyst of a stock.  When Seeking Alpha began paying writers for articles depending on hits, Sirius XM (NASDAQ:SIRI) investors saw an explosion of articles on their company.  Other sites offered overcoverage too, like Motely Fool and Street.com.  This coverage came mostly from authors who had never covered the stock, or perhaps ever covered a stock at all.  From ex Disc Jockeys,  “Financial Genius’s” around every corner, to it even getting an author who promised to never write about Sirius XM again on Seeking alpha (declaring that the company changed titles and was loose with the editing) to come out of retirement to take advantage of the money Sirius XM investors and traders would create by clicking every nonesense article written.  In fact, based on my and other investors observation, the more manical, creative, and hogwashish the better.  It only increased your chances of being published the more contraversial article it was.  Basically the best chance for hits, the more likely it was published.  Not quality.  I proved that time and time again when I was denied publishing of excellent 100% fact based articles giving real information, while an article writing about how Sirius XM is doomed by Pandora using all opinions makes a double post that same day.  I even proved it to my members by writing an article with the word Pandora in the title and was published almost instantly after been turned down on previous article attempts.  It was hilarious.

Regardless of if you believe Sirius XM will succeed long term, so far bulls are more right than they even thought, the death of the truth and quality is startling.  As Seeking Alpha portrayed themselves to be an editor and selector of quality, this move created the worst coverage of a stock anyone has ever seen in investing history.  The amount of lies and misinformation pepetruated by these trash journalists was staggering and still continues today.  It is not SA responsibility to check every fact in these articles, but certain authors that constantly lied and gave misinformation were definitely favorites, so some judiciary duty was definitely possible here.  As retail investors flee the stock, good news for all Sirius XM holders, this will become less and less a factor, as less and less articles will be written.  We are beginning to see that now.  So if you love your stock, help it by not supporting these authors.  Make them disappear into irrelevancy that they are.

It can be hard to be a good trader when amateurs are buzzing in your ear.  From fear mongering to its “taking off” to the stratosphere swing comments from even sometimes the same authors, causes retailers to provide endless funds for the smart trader blocks.  Comments such as it’s taking off to $5 after hitting 2.44, to its never going back over $2 again.  This is the type of coverage and how effective it was, is possibly why certain investors or holders of the stock see no reason to not play the swing trade.  Huge money duping millions of dollars of Sirius XM money flow into buying too high, or selling too low.  It has been a massively profitable game for 3 years running.  Look at the percentage of volume and percenatge of moves this stocks makes even on a monthly basis.  Insane.  High beta, but high volume too.  Interesting.  Basically the more people play the stock badly, the longer it takes us to get out of the cellar.  If you can get a reet to sell at 2, buy at 2.20 and sell again at 1.45, wouldn’t you do it too?  Especially if the SEC and the Federal Government allow it and don’t care , as they have proven time and time again they do not.

Fail to Delivers in July may have helped cause this downturn, but the amout of misinformation circlating makes it impossible to make a good decision on a trade if you tend to listen to the chatter.  Too many get rich quick traders got punked back to reality and now the mess needs to be sifted through to get to higher prices again.  I’m not blaming Seeking Alpha for the downturn, but every bit helps.

Disclosure: Long SIRI

View the full SIRI chart at Wikinvest