Chapter 75. PureCell Day (4)

Individual investors, with a heavy heart, deliberated on whether to sell their stocks, and the American stock site Army Ants was in an uproar.

- Wow! $3.2 billion in market cap just evaporated, is this for real?

- It plummeted from $65 to $12 in one go.

- It wasn't a Fuel Cell Day, it was a Panic Sell Day.

- They announced a hydrogen truck, but when you look closely, it's just an RC car. What's this?

- Even that was a wired model...

- If that guy hadn't opened the hood, we wouldn't have known.

- What he lifted wasn't the hood, it was the truth!

- Oh! The Hood Man!

- Who is that guy? He's so sexy!

- Look at those bulging veins on his arms. Why is his face so handsome?

- I heard he's from Continuum Capital.

- You like the second Tesla, don't you?

- They only say it moved, but they never say it drove. Haha.

- Hey, you bastards! Give me my money back!

- Wasn't there a problem from the start with a company like this being listed?

- We should have seen it coming when they went public through a backdoor listing.

- It turns out the CEO of Bread Button is a famous fraudster. The companies he created before were also fraudulent.

- What's the difference between these guys and Theranos?

- They haven't even started construction on the factory that was supposed to build the hydrogen truck, the claim about making hydrogen from solar power is a lie, the fuel cell stack they called a core technology was bought from elsewhere, and the new car is just a model. What's real here?

- What did you believe in to invest in such a fraudster?

- What is the SEC doing, not investigating these guys?

- The GM investment is probably a lie too.

- It'll be delisted soon.

- Shit! I bought 2,000 shares a few days ago, thinking it would rise, and now my return is -76%. I want to die.

- Honey, I'm sorry!

- I'm on my way to the Hudson River right now.

- Stop! I'll go first!

- Today, Thomas Motors shareholders are gathering at the Hudson River.

- Jumping all at once would be too crowded, so today, only those with the last digit of their social security number being 1 or 6 should jump.

- The water temperature is a comfortable 100°F!

The fire spread to GM.

The MOU for the acquisition of Thomas Motors' shares was a significant boon for GM, causing its stock price to rise by over 10 percent.

However, it quickly turned into a major disaster.

As inquiries from shareholders poured in, GM's CEO Jane Carniter stepped in to clarify.

"GM has not made any investment in Thomas Motors. There has been no decision on the acquisition of shares or production. We will not proceed with investment plans until we verify Thomas Motors' technological capabilities."

This statement triggered another plunge in Thomas Motors' stock.

The stock, which had barely held the $10 mark, fell to $6 after GM's denial.

As the controversy grew, the U.S. financial authorities stepped in.

The SEC (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) announced that it would conduct a thorough investigation into whether Thomas Motors had made false disclosures. This belated response infuriated individual investors.

* * *

News agencies uniformly wrote articles about the Thomas Motors incident, and foreign media also covered it as major news.

The first to publish the related report and article was Trish O'Connor of the Wall Street Times. Therefore, other media had no choice but to cite her article.

The journalists were bewildered as they wrote their articles.

"Is there a newspaper called the Wall Street Times?"

"It shows up when you search."

"Who is Trish O'Connor?"

"How did she publish this report exclusively?"

"Can't we interview Continuum Capital?"

"WST will probably get the exclusive."

"Can't we contact Huan Energy?"

"They also want to do an exclusive interview with WST."

"Damn! Not only did they get the scoop, but they're sweeping up all the follow-up reports."

"Don't we need to interview a journalist?"

"Can we contact O'Connor?"

"Do you know anyone at WST?"

This incident made the Wall Street Times and Trish O'Connor household names.

After all, an internet journalist had uncovered something that Wall Street investment experts and mainstream media had missed!

This was a once-in-a-lifetime scoop for a journalist.

The problem was the media that had published articles praising Thomas Motors. Those articles suddenly became fake news.

As criticism poured in, the media issued apologies and corrections.

Barnet was in the same boat.

Her article, posted just before the event, received thousands of negative comments.

- What? A comprehensive hydrogen energy company? Endless growth potential? Improved valuation from the new car launch?

- I saw the questions at the event, and it was clearly staged. Haha.

- Did the journalist get paid by Thomas Motors?

- Did you really do your research?

- Damn, the New York Times writing fake news.

- The New York Times is outdated. They hired a scumbag to write articles.

- I invested based on this article and lost everything.

- Let's all sue the journalist!

- Aren't you ashamed to call yourself a journalist after writing such an article?

- I would have jumped into the Hudson River by now.

- You're a scumbag, not a journalist.

- Did you write this to gather investors and then sell at the peak?

- I've canceled my New York Times subscription!

- We need to raid the journalist's bank account.

She was a popular journalist, running the official YouTube channel of the New York Times, and had received a lot of love from the public, but the criticism was equally intense.

Barnet Rose bit her lip as she read the comments.

'I thought they were just trying to get attention, but it was all real!'

If she had listened more carefully to Trish's story, she might have written a more cautious article. If she had, she might have avoided this criticism.

'How did she figure this out?'

She was being mocked for potentially facing a lawsuit, but now it seemed she might be the one sued.

Barnet received a harsh reprimand from her boss.

[You should have done your research! What if you wrote a wrong article? The company is getting bombarded with complaints! People are canceling subscriptions and threatening to sue!]

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

[Write an apology and a correction immediately!]

"......Yes."

A correction is a humiliating experience for a journalist, as it means admitting to the public that they provided incorrect information.

But it didn't end there.

[Didn't you say you were friends with Trish O'Connor, the journalist who broke the story for WST, and that she applied to our company?]

"Yes, but..."

[That's great. Then contact O'Connor.]

"Excuse me?"

[If you're friends, you must have her contact, right? Every media outlet is looking for her. We need to contact her faster than anyone else.]

"How do I contact her?"

[How do you contact her? You need something for the correction, right? Get some information or interview her, even a small detail. Right now!]

"Ah, I understand."

Barnet made a grimace.

She had subtly looked down on internet media, but now she had to beg for help.

* * *

If it had been just a report and the articles based on it, the shock wouldn't have been this great.

However, it was revealed that the new car at the event was a model, and Huan Energy, which was supposed to collaborate on building hydrogen infrastructure, canceled the collaboration and sold all its shares.

When GM also denied the collaboration, Thomas Motors' stock plummeted by 90 percent, and $36 billion in market cap evaporated in an instant.

The related companies also fell, causing a shock to the entire stock market.

The decline showed no signs of stopping. Investors who had directly invested in Thomas Motors and those who had invested in related companies were in a state of emergency.

"Where did the report come from?"

"From Continuum Capital."

"Who wrote it?"

"David Rockhart."

"You mean that Rockhart? The one who worked at Victoria Investment?"

"Didn't he get kicked out of Wall Street?"

"He's still alive."

"Could he have bought put options and shorted the stock while publishing the report?"

"Damn! He must have made a killing."

There are countless hedge funds on Wall Street that identify accounting fraud or false claims in companies, bet on the stock price collapse, and then expose it to make money.

However, not all of them succeed, and some suffer significant losses.

But Continuum Capital caused a 90 percent drop in just one day with a single report!

They must have made a huge profit.

Amid the chaos in the financial market, everyone was curious about the identity of Continuum Capital.

The only known information was that David Rockhart, who had previously worked at Victoria Investment, was the representative.

"When did they raise funds and start the company?"

"Damn! We should have brought him in earlier!"

"Didn't he apply to our company? Who rejected him?"

David Rockhart had a period after Victoria Investment went bankrupt where he struggled to find a job.

Investment firms regretted not hiring him at the time.

Investors' calls flooded in, nearly paralyzing business operations.

The drop was so significant that it was hard to decide whether to sell the stock now or wait for a rebound.

Michael Preston, the CEO of Shark Management, frowned as he watched the plummeting stock price.

Shark Management was one of the major investors in Thomas Motors, holding 3.9 percent of the shares, worth about $1.6 billion.

However, 90 percent of the stock price vanished in just one day. The shares, worth $1.6 billion in the morning, were now worth $160 million.

Over $1.4 billion in assets in the fund had evaporated.

Fortunately, due to the relatively early investment, the loss rate was -35 percent, not -90 percent.

Michael Preston read the report that triggered this incident.

The report was written by David Rockhart, and the person who opened the hood of the hydrogen truck at the event, revealing it was a model, was one of his employees.

This meant that he had planned everything to cause the stock price to collapse, and his plan had worked perfectly.

How many people have achieved such success through short selling in recent years?

While he was busy dealing with the situation, his phone rang. The caller was Erica Preston, his younger sister.

He answered the call.

"What's up?"

[Your unbeaten record is broken.]

"Losses are inevitable when you invest."

[But you've never had a loss before. That's why you had the reputation of being unbeaten.]

"Only fools are obsessed with their reputation."

[There are more fools than smart people in the world. That's why reputation is always important.]

"What are you trying to say?"

[I heard David Rockhart applied to Shark Management. If we had hired him earlier, could we have avoided this?]

Michael said calmly.

"Regretting the past is pointless."

[You're right. I just felt a bit disappointed. Well, I'll hang up now.]