Tech Trader: Microvision Plunges On Negative Seeking Alpha Post

Microvision (MVIS) shares are sharply lower this morning on a highly negative post about the company on the investment blog aggregation site Seeking Alpha.

The post is attributed to someone named Liam Mulcahy, who is described as someone who “works in a hedge fund that is short Microvision.” The hedge fund isn’t named; and I can’t find anything else on the author. Anyone know who he is?

Microvision is developing pico projectors, which as the name implies are very small projectors designed to be embedded in small devices. A projector company called Optoma last week unveiled a pico projector using rival technology from Texas Instruments (TXN). (In this case, you would hook up your cell phone or PDA to the projector for a large display of pictures or other images.) The post asserts that Microvision’s own projectors, known as The Show, continue to fall behind schedule, and that Microvision is facing a cash crunch.

That all may well be true, but the fuzzy ID for Mulcahy - and the willingness of Seeking Alpha to post material of unclear origin - makes me a little queasy.

Disclosure: some of the posts from Tech Trader Daily are also carried on Seeking Alpha.

MVIS Monday is down 50 cents, or 14.7%, to $2.90.

Comments

[fireball]

can microvision take legal action against seeking alpha for such careless posting? can they go after mulcahy? the whole thing reeks of market manipulation on mulcahy"s part and negligence on seeking alphas. it is an influential site and should be accountable.

[dano670]

I hope so. The stock was down 70 cents a share (20%) on the day but recovered back to $3.00. The Annual Shareholders meeting for the company is the tomorrow so hopefully someone from the company will address this.

[Daniel Jacome]

all this is interesting to say the least.

SA has gotten big enough where posts can influence the market and they should start thinking twice about taking submissions from people who do not reveal themselves to readers...SA says the editors can track down these anonymous people, but it is hard for readers to make an investment decision if they are looking at words coming from a phantom or empty shell...what good does it do US if we have no idea who is behind the stock picks? if you held 5% of a company, an article on SA could influence whether you stick with or dump a stock -- however, if you read something from someone who won't reveal him/herself, it can make your research process harder, not easier, right??

I personally read SA everyday and love what the site has become -- but it has to guard against becoming too big, too fast.

[raytayzmd]

...anymore it seems like every other article is by some "anonymous" contributor more often than not "pumping" scam stocks like GNBT and RZ...all the BS is turning "SEEKINGALPHA&quo... INTO a cesspool.

[hillerby55]

If Eric Savitz wants to comment and say "That all may well be true, but the fuzzy ID for Mulcahy - and the willingness of Seeking Alpha to post material of unclear origin - makes me a little queasy."
then why doesn't Eric do some DD on the article and first see if
there is any merit to them. MVIS was given time to respond to Seeking Alpha's posting of Liam's article when MVIS compained to Seeking Alpha of inaccuracies in the story. He fails to mention that so far MVIS either hasn't explained these inaccuracies or Seeking Alpha won't print them. Seeking Alpha needs to be open and report and post all the party"s responsess involved so we, the readers can make up our minds. Eric's choice of words basically saying the article was the reason for the drop ( I believe it was naked shorts) might be the same reason that Eric's own negative article on Spain possibly cutting subsidies was the cause for solars to drop. I am a little queasy myself.