Searchsleuth.com will focus on investigative journalism, seeking to find unsavory companies and share the tales behind their malfeasance, Carey says. The stories will take an "anti-fraud, pro-investor” point of view and will likely steer away from the '“he-said, she-said'” approach of much contemporary journalism."Apparently, Cuban will attempt to profit from the information he uncovers by shorting the stocks prior to unveiling the stories. At the time of Cuban's announcement, there were a lot of questions as to whether this approach was legal or amounted to insider trading (for a law professor's analysis of the issue, see Larry Ribstein's TCS story here).
To make a long story short (no pun intended), Cuban's new site is up and running and has it's first post. No investigative journalism yet (it's more of a generic piece that doesn't mention any specific companies), but I'll keep an eye on the site.
From an academic standpoint, it's an interesting idea, and could raise some interesting issues. First off, I'm curious to see what the site will add over and above the information already in Footnoted.org. Second, I wonder if Cuban will disclose his positions AND the dates he took them (highly unlikely, but I can hope, can't I?). This would make for a good case study on the actual payoff to information gathering, and would add a lot of credibility to the site. Finally, I wonder what effect the publishing of the stories will have on the trading volume (and bid-ask spreads) in the stocks covered.
Stay tuned.
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