A few weeks ago, there was an article basically blasting a company called Advanced Battery Technologies (NASDAQ: ABAT). It was submitted by Variant View, and the author of the piece listed 12 reasons why he was shorting the stock.
Some of the reasons sounded legitimate (assuming they were true) and some were sketchy...
For instance, reason number two stated the company led investors to think it made cutting-edge electric cars, when in fact it produced cheap scooters and bicycles.
I'm quite familiar with this company and I've never seen any evidence that it said it was making cutting-edge electric cars.
In fact, a couple of years ago when I was doing early research on the company, the big sell was the fact that they were hitting the scooter and bicycle market.
You see, we do spend a lot of time here focusing on electric cars and trucks. But we have to remember the world is not only what we see in our backyard. I'm reminded of this every time I go to Asia or Europe and see swarms of daily commuters on scooters and motorcycles.
In 2009, Chinese consumers purchased 21 million electric bikes. China actually has about four times as many electric bikes on the road than it does cars. And in Europe, it has been estimated that for 2010, about 1 million electric bikes will have been sold...
So when the folks at Variant View wrote about ABAT producing cheap scooters and bicycles — and did so in a sort of mocking tone — I was a little suspicious.
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