Did Overstock.com cook the books

AlfredSokol said: "Interesting article by the form CFO of Crazy Eddie's. He takes a look at [url=http://whitecollarfraud.blogspot.com/2007/08/did-overstockcom-ceo-patrick-byrne-cook_22.html]Overstock.com and some potential issues[/url] surrounding the collapse of their stock. [quote] With massive losses in the first quarter and the knowledge that that "things were going to get really ugly and that the company was going to have to take medicine...in the form of dumping a bunch of inventory" how could Patrick Byrne still claim that Overstock.com would "definitely" end up the year at "break even or better" on an EBITDA basis? Was it a delusional fantasy, hype, or plain old stupidity? Gross inventories (before reserves) declined from about $98.5 million at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2005 to about $84.7 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2006. Inventory reserves dropped during the first quarter from about 5.32% of gross inventory to about 3.90%, for about a 27% reduction in relative reserves. Overstock.com's reduction in inventory reserves added about a full percent to gross margins. Had there not been a reduction in such reserves, Overstock.com's gross margin decline from 2006 to 2005 would have doubled from about 0.9% to 1.9%.[/quote] Interesting insight into the mind of a stock manipulator."

Rbreb13 said: "The CEO of OSTK has also been claiming that there's a huge naked short position killing the pps. He's been claiming it for years now."

AlfredSokol said: "The old "Naked Short" ruse, eh?"