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Outspoken activist short seller Andrew Left on Friday said that after 20 years, his firm Citron Research will exit the business of writing reports focusing on companies whose value may fall.
Via Twitter and YouTube video, Left explained his decision with a headline saying: “Citron Research discontinues short selling research. After 20 years of publishing Citron will no longer publish ‘short reports’.”
Citron said it would focus instead “on giving long side multibagger opportunities for individual investors.”
The decision comes after a battle with stock traders who gathered on social-media platforms like Reddit Discord and Facebook FB, -1.75% and drove up the shares of heavily shorted stocks like GameStop Corp. GME, +66.32%, a bricks-and-mortar videogame retailer that Left said was worth only about $20 a share.
Left said that feud escalated quickly and resulted in his personal information being shared widely and his social-media accounts being hacked. Left also said that his two children were threatened via text.
The battle also spilled over into other stocks, including AMC Entertainment Holdings AMC, +45.89% and BlackBerry Ltd. BB, +7.85%, where individual investors vied against hedge funds, raising worries about the fragility of the market, as well as concerns that financial markets are stacked against individual investors.
Left describes himself as a watchdog of “fraudulent and over-hyped stocks,” and is best known for his call several years ago on the Canadian pharmaceutical then known as Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which changed its name to Bausch Health Cos. BHC, +1.40%
