Available in | English |
---|---|
URL | sharesleuth.com |
Launched | 2006[1] |
Current status | Active |
Sharesleuth is an investigative reporting website, created to investigate and report on instances of alleged securities fraud and corporate malfeasance.[2][3] It was founded in July 2006 by American businessman Mark Cuban and business reporter Chris Carey, formerly of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.[1]
In early 2006, Carey approached Cuban with the idea of launching an investigative organization focusing on corporate fraud.[1] Cuban was receptive to the idea, and offered to finance the venture.[1] Within its first year, Sharesleuth articles on the publicly traded companies Xethanol and UTEK were followed by drops of over 35% in the stock price of each company.[1] Sharesleuth has since reported on many other companies, including Kandi Technologies[4] and Highland Mint, a firm that manufactured the coins used in the Super Bowl pre-game coin toss.[5]
As a means of funding the site, Cuban typically shorts the stocks of the article subjects prior to publication,[6] a practice which has drawn controversy.[7][8][1] He has stated that the site has published articles on "literally anything that I have shorted".[9]
In October 2008, Cuban and Carey started a companion website, BailoutSleuth, for the purpose of tracking Troubled Asset Relief Program funds and bank activity in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and resulting bank bailouts.[2] Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Gary Cohn of The Baltimore Sun and Russell Carollo of the Dayton Daily News were hired in 2009–2010, the latter to handle Freedom of Information Act requests.[2] Unlike the for-profit Sharesleuth, BailoutSleuth was conceived as a nonprofit service.[2] 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.[2][10] As with Sharesleuth, Cuban provided the funding and Carey served as the investigative reporter.[10] The site has since closed.