Sharesleuth is an

investigative reporting Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years res ...

website, created to investigate and report on instances of alleged

securities fraud Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in lo ...

and corporate malfeasance. It was founded in July 2006 by American businessman

Mark Cuban Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to '' Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 lis ...

and business reporter Chris Carey, formerly of the ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, serving the Greater St. Louis, St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpass ...

''.

History

In early 2006, Carey approached Cuban with the idea of launching an investigative organization focusing on corporate fraud. Cuban was receptive to the idea, and offered to finance the venture. Within its first year, Sharesleuth articles on the publicly traded companies

Xethanol Xethanol was one of the smaller producers of corn ethanol in the United States, and one of the few publicly traded companies developing technology for producing cellulose ethanol. Ethanol fuel will have increased production from a current level o ...

and

UTEK Innovaro, formerly known as UTEK Corporation, was a consulting company focused on innovation and software solutions. It was based in Tampa, Florida. It was founded by Clifford M. Gross in 1997. The company initial public offering was in October 2 ...

were followed by drops of over 35% in the stock price of each company. Sharesleuth has since reported on many other companies, including

Kandi Technologies Kandi Technologies Group, Inc. is a Chinese battery and electric vehicle manufacturer. Kandi is listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange with ticker KNDI. It was founded in 2002 in Jinhua, Zhejiang by Hu Xiaoming. History Kandi partnership with G ...

and Highland Mint, a firm that manufactured the coins used in the Super Bowl pre-game coin toss. As a means of funding the site, Cuban typically

shorts Shorts are a garment worn over the pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" because they ...

the stocks of the article subjects prior to publication, a practice which has drawn controversy. He has stated that the site has published articles on "literally anything that I have shorted".

Related sites

In October 2008, Cuban and Carey started a companion website, BailoutSleuth, for the purpose of tracking

Troubled Asset Relief Program The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is a program of the United States government to purchase toxic assets and equity from financial institutions to strengthen its financial sector that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President ...

funds and bank activity in the wake of the

2008 financial crisis 8 (eight) is the natural number following 7 and preceding 9. In mathematics 8 is: * a composite number, its proper divisors being , , and . It is twice 4 or four times 2. * a power of two, being 2 (two cubed), and is the first number of t ...

and resulting bank bailouts. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists

Gary Cohn Gary David Cohn (born August 27, 1960) is an American business leader who served as the 11th Director of the National Economic Council and chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018. He managed the administration's econo ...

of ''

The Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries. Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...

'' and

Russell Carollo Russell John Carollo (March 16, 1955 – December 19, 2018) was an American Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, who worked as an investigative reporter for numerous publications, including the ''Dayton Daily News'', the ''Los Angeles Times'', ...

of the ''

Dayton Daily News The ''Dayton Daily News'' (''DDN'') is a daily newspaper published in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It is owned by Cox Enterprises, Inc., a privately held global conglomerate headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, with approximately 5 ...

'' were hired in 2009–2010, the latter to handle

Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request: * Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act * ...

requests. Unlike the for-profit Sharesleuth, BailoutSleuth was conceived as a nonprofit service. The site is no longer online. In mid-2010 Cuban and Carey created another nonprofit website, JunketSleuth.com, to provide access to government travel spending records. As with Sharesleuth, Cuban provided the funding and Carey served as the investigative reporter. The site has since closed.

References

External links

*{{Official, http://sharesleuth.com American financial news websites

History

Related sites

References

Further reading

External links