It is against U.S. securities law to knowingly make false statements or publish false information about a company you are shorting (selling stock now and buying the shares later, hence betting the stock price will go down). In other words, you can’t try to drive the company’s stock price down you are shorting so you can profit from the trade. Besides being illegal, the practice is unethical. Just go to Kant for that! The guy was fanatical against lying.
You wouldn’t expect to read, therefore, that the SEC is investigating a Greek Orthodox priest who sidelines as a hedge-fund manager for trashing commercial reputations in order to make money off shorting stock. BloombergBusiness reported on March 18, 2016 that the SEC was “examining whether the Reverend Emmanuel Lemelson of Massachusetts made false statements about companies he was shorting.”[1]
He reportedly referred to his trading skills as a “gift from God.”[2]
Such a claim is on a slippery slope, theologically speaking.
The full essay is at "SEC Investigating Pro-Wealth Christianity."
1. Matt
Robinson, “Hedge
Fund Priest’s Trades Probed by Wall Street Cop,” BloombergBusiness, March 18, 2016.
2. Ibid.
