CRITIC’S ‘SHORT’ SHRIFT
Stox tout fires back
Dave Portnoy got into a fiery online spat with a skeptical investor Wednesday over a stock Portnoy says he no longer owns.
The Barstool Sports founder kicked off his daily day-trading broadcast on Twitter by tearing into Wolfpack Research short-seller Dan David, who slammed him Tuesday for touting what David called “less than worthless” shares in the tech firm Remark Holdings.
Calling David a “fraud” and a “used car salesman,” Portnoy said he has dumped all his Remark shares and denied that he has pushed the stock, which trades under the ticker symbol MARK.
“Now I wanna buy MARK because this guy’s clearly in cahoots against them,” Portnoy said after reading from The Post’s Tuesday report on David’s concerns about Remark, which include alleged ties to a blacklisted Chinese company.
“And by the way, MARK’s up because nobody gives a f--k what this guy, who looks like a f--king doo-doo face, says,” Portnoy added in a fiveminute video that has racked up more than 94,000 views on Twitter. Remark shares climbed slightly in early trading Wednesday but fell 5.4 percent to $1.76 at the closing bell. This year, however, the stock is up 38 percent.
David fired back from his firm’s Twitter account, calling Portnoy “a pumper scumbag wearing pajamas.”
“When Davey is challenged and knows he is wrong, it’s always the same,” David told The Post in a statement. “He throws around odd insults followed by touting how rich he is. He does zero diligence and provides no specific rebuttal to any of our research.”
Noting that he has called Remark’s shares the “WOAT” (“worst of all time”), Portnoy said he hasn’t told anyone to buy them in roughly three months. But he didn’t mention that he boasted about the stock’s gains and his decision to hold onto it three weeks ago.
“Those who stay will become champions!” he said on July 23. “Never sell!”
Remark on Wednesday attacked Wolfpack’s research as “misleading and sloppy,” “flawed and self-serving.”
“We categorically refute the ‘Wolfpack’s’ misleading and sloppy research in an attempt to profit off their short position,” E. Brian Harvey, Remark’s director of investor relations, said in an e-mail.
“We have only spoken with Mr. Portnoy once, and respect his achievements,” Harvey said, before adding: “We are focusing on our business and will not be getting into a backand-forth thereby giving any credibility to their flawed and self-serving conclusions.”
Portnoy came onto the daytrading scene after live sporting events were canceled due to the coronavirus by detailing his wins and losses in expletive-filled videos. He has even compared himself to famed investor Warren Buffett.
“There’s nobody who can argue that Warren Buffett is better at the stock market than I am right now,” he boasted in June. “I’m better than he is. That’s a fact.”