Sold Short

Diana Day Afternoon

Making of the Short Seller

The First Short: General Nutrition Takes Ill

Diana: "The Switch Works!"

Solv-Ex: Something Oily

Schonberg's List

By-the-Numbers Stock Promotions

Gross Mismanagement

Abusing the Process

How to Sell Short

Get Ready for a Big One

Index

Manuel P. Asensio is founder and Chairman of Asensio & Co., Inc. He has over twenty years of corporate finance and research experience. He has been featured in Business Week, Fortune, Forbes, Worth, the New York Times, New York magazine, and the New Republic, among other leading publications. Mr. Asensio received his BS in economics and finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MBA in investment management from Harvard University Graduate School of Business.

JACK BARTH is a freelance writer and journalist. Mr. Barth's articles have been published in Worth, Spy, Outside, Premiere, and Rolling Stone. In addition, he has written for television, including episodes for The Simpsons and for the Comedy Channel. He is the author of four books: Roadside Elvis, Roadside Hollywood, American Quest, and Roadside America.

"Sold Short is a mixture of personal history and war stories about Asensio's battles with various companies. It's a walk through the sleazy side of Wall Street, providing ample evidence that analysts and mutual fund managers are quite capable of ignoring both fraud and incompetence if there's a chance to make a buck." (Fortune Magazine)"Sold Short is most useful for the detail it provides on the stock promoter's bag of tricks...the standard work are not as revealing on the social, as well as the financial, patterns that fraud takes...Sold Short is a helpful book..." (Financial Times)"Asensio's no-nonsense writing style sets his book apart from the usual staid and pompous investment coverage...his book is fun to read; its skeptical approach to Wall Street hype should find a ready audience among the millions of investors..." (Publishers Weekly)

He's in the Index, Too
Look for Wall Street and business-media types to scan index pages in the just-published Sold Short: Uncovering Deception in the Markets by famous short-seller Manuel P. Asensio. He delights in naming dozens of analysts, journalists and brokerages he says helped pump up dubious stocks that later tanked after he issued withering research reports. On the next-to-last page Asensio finally mentions the $75,000 fine he paid regulators last year to settle charges that, among other things, he and his Asensio & Co. overstated their own investment record.
--Forbes May 28, 2001
Short-sellers have a natural appeal to journalists. Members of
both occupations require deep scepticism about the motives of
the rich and powerful, and both engender a black humour that
can be off-putting to the innocent and uninitiated.
Short-selling is the sale of borrowed or never-owned securities
with the intention of profiting from a decline in their price. The
profit is made when the shares price has declined, and the
short-seller is able to repay the loan of the securities or makes
good the promise to deliver with securities bought at a lower
price.
The profit is limited to the price of the security at the time the
short sale is made; the loss can be as high as a security's price
can rise.
There are quiet, behind-the-scenes short-sellers - and then
there is Manuel Asensio. His brokerage house, Asensio
Company, specialises in executing short sales for clients, some
of which are almost certainly investment funds in which he has
an interest.
He searches for frauds and simple overvaluations in the
securities market, sells them short on behalf of his clients, and
then trumpets their shortcomings to the world.
Along with other journalists, I have made use of Asensio's
material, though not without checking it first. When I did, it
turned out to be quite reliable.
Not everyone has the same feeling about Asensio. He is
regularly sued by promoters and