SEX SELL, SELL!
Did Portnoy’s naughty vid cause stock drop?
Dave Portnoy wants investors to get their heads out of the gutter.
The Barstool Sports boss brushed off speculation that his latest leaked sex tape was weighing on Penn National Gaming’s stock price this week.
Portnoy addressed the leak Tuesday as shares of the casino company that owns about a third of his Barstool empire slid roughly 2.6 percent to end the day at $104.09.
“A stock is down because somebody has consensual sex? Are you f--king kidding me?” Portnoy said in a profane video he posted to Twitter, urging his 2.4 million followers to buy Penn’s shares while the price was lower.
“I would jump on this dip, and I would f--k it,” he said. “No pun intended.”
Portnoy claims to own a “ton” of stock in Penn, which paid $136 million for a 36 percent stake in Barstool last year.
Under the terms of the deal, which values Barstool at roughly $450 million, Penn will eventually pay $62 million to increase its stake to 50 percent.
The Pennsylvania-based outfit has since launched casino sportsbooks and a sports-betting app emblazoned with Barstool’s brand, which Penn CEO Jay Snowden recently touted as an “undervalued media asset.”
While it’s unclear whether Portnoy’s purported sex tape actually drove down Penn’s share price Tuesday, the day-trading maven suggested that investors shouldn’t pay it any mind given that two other salacious clips of him have previously gotten out.
He also tweeted that it’s a “federal crime” to watch or post the video.
“Penn stock is down because there’s a f--kng sex tape of me? Hey, news flash: It’s the third f--king one,” he said. “What are you gonna f--king do?” he added. “It’s the Internet. So I have sex. People f--kng know that.”
It’s just the latest stock-related dustup for Portnoy, who last year became a hero for day traders as he pivoted from sports to penny stocks as the coronavirus forced nationwide shutdowns of live sports.
In January, Portnoy became a face of the “Reddit rally,” in which rookie investors pumped shares of heavily shorted companies like GameStop and AMC Entertainment at the expense of big hedge funds.
That included a standoff with Vlad Tenev, CEO of the Robinhood trading app, whom he branded a “rat and a liar” after the app temporarily halted trading of so-called “meme stocks” — a move that caused them to tank.
“You did something and gave a huge advantage to the big guy that is the exact opposite of helping the little guy,” Portnoy told Tenev during a livestream broadcast on Twitter. “You killed the little guy.”
Portnoy admitted in February that he had personally lost about $700,000 trading such stocks.
Penn shares continued their three-day slump Wednesday by falling 1.7 percent to $102.37.