Overstock.com, Inc. (OSTK)

metoo105 (99.70) Submitted: 11/20/06 11:07 AM

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This is just a fascinating exchange.

I wish there was stock in Greenberg that I could short, because I agree that he sometimes lets the cart get ahead of the horse and flirts so often with the truth that he runs up against legit trade libel suits for which the 1st A. would offer him little protection. I have no idea what to make of this last point of disagreement, which seems fundamental, but going back through the Greenberg articles after reading this exchange make me arch my eyebrows a touch since Greenberg strikes me as guilty of deception on a par of that which he accuses of BBC.

For instance, he notes that BBC claims to have proprietary technology, but that it has no patents. And then that's it, case closed. Nothing more? Anyone with the slightest grasp of intellectual property law knows that patents are merely one tool in the arsenal, and that for duration a trade secret beats a patent any day. I have no idea if BBC has such trade secreted information, but I do no that the conclusion that he pushes his reader to draw is not so easy. We need to know if they have any trade secrets. Couldn't he have asked them this?

The accusation that Mr. Wey was once Mr. Wei is similarly shady. Can't a man just get sick and tired of people mispronouncing his name? Chinese names routinely have different spellings in English. His first article left it at that and didn't delve into the other infractions, which I think shoddy work. Either he could have digged up the dirt or he could have left that issue alone. But then it turns out there's some dirt. My question would then be, who in their right mind would expect anything else from a promoter? I am not sure how his NYGG differs at all from the legions of CFAs working at "independent research firms" who issue buy, strong, speculative buy, or speculative strong buy ratings for the low low price of five to ten grand.

Third he seems to accuse BBC of a double edged lie. The first stems from the confusion of the word biotech which seems to be a poor translation of Chinese into English. Fine, that probably shouldn't stick. Then he tries to suggest that even if biotech takes a different meaning, that BBC's use with regard to fertilizer would not be quite right since it has nothing to do with manure - "not a manure product base at all." Then he goes on to discuss how BBC is obtaining cheap urea. Urea, for those of you who didn't take a lot of science, is a nitrogen based compound made by the kidneys of mammals that can be used to replenish the nitrogen in the soil, and would most definitely qualify as an "organic" fertilizer in any country. This is one thing that just kills me is the degree to which "organic" is so commonly misunderstood. It still qualifies as organic, even if its production has nothing to do with live animals.

There's more I could say, but why go on? BBC may suck as an investment. I don't know. In my opinion, Greenberg clearly needs to take some of that suspicious gaze he has for companies and turn it on his sources.

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