Press Quotes

No. Date Quote
72 June 13, 2011

While most UK investors are unlikely to be familiar with [Asensio's] work they might be aware of its results.
Duncan Hughes Financial Times

71 July 9, 2010

Since April, a nonprofit group associated with another high-profile investor, Manuel P. Asensio, has written five letters criticizing the for-profit education industry and calling for tighter regulation to congressmen and regulators with jurisdiction over the sector.
Sharona Coutts ProPublica July 9, 2010

70 June 30, 2010

[A] famed short seller Manuel P. Asensio’s new nonprofit group has written to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, asking him to investigate the business practices of a for-profit education company. … “Without the scam on the DOE, for-profits would not exist,” Asensio said in an interview. “It’s the worst product at the highest price.” He said the for-profits get the least-educated people, “who are most susceptible and are least capable of analyzing what they’re buying, to get on board….We don’t see any redeeming value for the for-profit education stocks. There’s no reason for them to exist."
Chris Frates Politico June 30, 2010

69 February 22, 2010

Shares of China Sky One Medical, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSKI) are under pressure today which could be related to reports late last week from Asensio.com that eight products manufactured by the company appear in a Chinese government notice of "counterfeit drug products."
streetinsider.com February 22, 2010

68 April 21, 2009

Timminco Ltd.'s spectacular fall from grace continued yesterday....Manuel Asensio, a New York-based fund manager....publicly criticized the company.
Andy Hoffman The Globe and Mail April 21, 2009

67 April 17, 2009

Manuel Asensio doesn't bet often. But when he does, it's wise to pay attention.
Paul Kaihla eCompany Now

66 April 8, 2009

Manuel Asensio is "a veteran short-seller, whose Asensio & Co has identified dozens of cases of corproate fraud and profited by selling their shares short."
Joseph A. Giannone Reuters April 8, 2009

65 April 7, 2009

In a response to former SEC Commissioner Roel Campos stating that there ought to be a certain level of short selling regulation, New York hedge fund manager and activist short seller Manuel Asensio responded on Bloomberg-TV: "There should be no reason to borrow stock," referring to the requirement that one should borrow stock that they sell short.
Reggie Abaca, Market Rap

64 January 25, 2009

I should credit Manuel Asensio and his book Sold Short for opening my eyes to the story at Zonagen. Manuel is a notable short-seller who issued a flurry of negative reports on Zonagen as its stock fell from a climax of more than $40 per share down to under a buck.
Ian Bezek, Seeking Alpha

63 November 15, 2008

At least one other market participant, Manuel Asensio, a noted short seller, continues to remain skeptical. In a note, he said that Timminco "is a corporate governance and fair disclosure case. This is not a new-technology or emerging-markets case," he declared, adding that he is "not short TIM."
Barry Critchley, Financial Post

62 September 26, 2008

Known as a prominent short seller, Asensio now runs a long/short equity hedge fund, which takes both positive and bearish bets. Asensio can't increase short positions on financial-services shares, so he said he may have to sell some long positions to hedge against broader declines in the stock market.
Alistair Barr Market Watch September 26, 2008

61 September 2, 2008

Asensio’s LDK reports “have hardly tempered their scornful tone.”
Kevin Kelleher The Street.com September 2, 2008

60 July 18, 2008

Another notable short-seller who does his homework is Manuel Asensio. Asensio publicizes some of his research as an aspect of his business model… the research also serves a public interest, throwing light on various unsavory stock promotions and bogus or exaggerated management claims.
Andy Szabo Investment Value Digest Blog July 18, 2008

59 July 8, 2008

Asensio helped define "activist investor."
Rick McRoskey The Wizards of Short-Selling BusinessWeek July 8, 2008

58 June 12, 2008

“The shorts I know, on the other hand, perhaps because they’re often falsely accused of spreading “rumor and innuendo”, bend over backwards to be open and factual. Think Bill Ackman on Farmer Mac and MBIA, Manuel Asensio (who has his own web site, www.asensio.com), Jim Chanos”
Whitney Tilson, "NYT Smears David Einhorn, Again" Seeking Alpha

57 May 14, 2008

Diatribes against Mr. Asensio often overlook the quality of his research and his rather impressive record in sniffing out overvalued companies.
Lee M. Webb Stockwatch May 14, 2008

56 April 24, 2008

This is not a game for the meek as targeted companies tend to come after such analysts with a vengeance. In one particularly heated litigation, Hemispherx Biopharma responded to claims that its highly touted drug Ampligen was worthless - causing the company's stock price to plummet and enriching the short selling counter-analyst Manuel Asensio - by suing Asensio for defamation, seeking the $80 million in the drop in trial has been ordered. Since 1998, Asensio has attacked 28 companies for advancing poor drugs based on poor studies and some of the companies have been forced into bankruptcy or delisted from the stock exchanges following his charges. He has claimed his annual earnings are roughly $6 million per year. L. Stuart Ditzen. Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine July 14, 2002
John J. Donohue, Yale Law School "Can You Believe Econometric Evaluations of Law, Policy and Medicine?"

55 September 25, 2006

Pegasus's 86% price decline "coincides with the publication of 11 negative research notes from July through August by well-known short-seller Manuel Asensio."
Liz Moyer, Forbes

54 August 21, 2006

One of Wall Street's best known short sellers, Manuel Asensio, spotted Pegasus' ties to an accused Taiwanese super-embezzler...
Christopher Byron, New York Post

53 July 6, 2006

“Among the biggest skeptics was Manuel P. Asensio, a money manager who sold Solv-Ex stock short. A short sale is a bet by an investor that the value of a stock will fall. Asensio told a Canadian newspaper that Solv-Ex 'was perhaps the greatest blizzard of way-over-the-top pumpery I have ever witnessed.'"
Winthrop Quigley, Albuquerque Journal (New Mexico)

52 June 14, 2006

Manuel Asensio, one of the most outspoken and controversial short sellers, has scaled back in recent years and is now investing on both the long and short side. Asensio generated annual returns of more than 30% from 1996 to 2003 by aggressively shorting shares of companies including Diana Corp., Winstar Communications Inc. and Turbodyne Technologies Inc. (TRBD 0.00, +0.00, +16.67%) . Diana and Winstar are now bankrupt.
Alistair Barr, MarketWatch

51 January 15, 2006

An interview with Manuel Asensio quickly reveals a manager with a strong, independent mindset…..Asensio’s style was amongst the most aggressive of short sellers in recent history. This certainly required a great amount of resolve, which was undoubtedly forged and strengthened by the great deal of research he did on each company that he shorted.
Doug Wakefield with Ben Hill, Riders on the Storm: Short Selling in Contrary Winds

50 January 11, 2005

Winstar [...] failed to make an interest payment on some debt, shortly before it fell into bankruptcy, as Asensio predicted.
Charles Gasparino
 Blood on the Street

49 June 1, 2004

Asensio has a remarkedly strong record in picking shorts. [....] For that talent, one company has called him 'one of the world's best-known short sellers.'
David A. Geracioti, Investing Guru Registered Rep

48 April 12, 2004

On Thursday, Asensio & Company, an investment firm, faxed a letter to Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, charging that misuse of the nano label has become a favorite tactic for fraudulent stock promotion.
Barnaby J. Feder, The New York Times

47 November 24, 2003

Manuel Asensio... is not shy in critiquing stocks he rates overpriced.
Emily Lambert, Forbes

46 March 11, 2003

Manuel Asensio, another well known short-seller, wrote a book a couple of years ago titled Sold Short in which he relates many episodes in which his quest to make money on the short side uncovered stock fraud and other brands of corporate mischief.
Christopher Mayer Ludwig von Mises Institute

45 February 18, 2003

Asensio is despised in boardrooms for his Dick Tracy snooping and bullhorn denunciations of businesses he believes are frauds.  A short seller with a long list of corporate scalps to his name, Asensio was burning shoe leather in Port St. Lucie as part of a campaign to prove that PolyMedica, the nation's largest provider of diabetes home-testing kits, is a Medicare abuser.
Thor Valdmanis, USA Today

44 February 18, 2003

Everyone agrees [Asensio] gets results.
Thor Valdmanis, USA Today

43 October 21, 2002

Asensio is widely known on Wall Street as a "short seller," an investor who makes money as the result of a company's financial distress.
Bill Burke, The Virginian-Pilot

42 July 14, 2002

[Asensio] borrows lots of stock and sells it high. When the price falls, he buys the stock back, returns it to the owner and counts his winnings. Most of those stocks have plummeted. Several companies have gone bankrupt or been delisted.
L. Stuart Dinzen Inquirer Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer

41 June 17, 2002

Research Frontiers continues to battle with a vocal investor group that is working to drive down the stock price. Earlier this month, Manuel Asensio, chief executive of Asensio & Co., sent a letter to Research Frontiers' board of directors taking the company to task.
newsday.com

40 February 6, 2002

Even following the recent [92%] decline in VeriSign's stock price, famed short-seller Manuel Asensio isn't declaring victory. The New York investor continues to have a short position [...]
Peter Loftus, The Wall Street Journal

39 November 26, 2001

Asensio’s zest for battle really sets him apart.
Brett Nelson, Forbes

38 September 18, 2001

Asensio has produced perhaps the best public record of stock calls in the business.
Zeke Ashton & Whitney Tilson, TheMotleyFool.com

37 September 1, 2001

Asensio provides sound economic arguments for loosening the regulatory constraints on short selling...
Martin S. Fridson, Financial Analysts Journal

36 August 19, 2001

So when will individual investors wise up […] when they start paying attention to people like Asensio.
Eric Winig
Washington Business Journal

35 July 30, 2001

Asensio gave us “the story of Peter Young, an Oxford University graduate with a degee in math and annual salary and bonuses over US$450,000 who,having dabbled in shares of a firm called Solv-Ex throgh some shady European accounts was charged with numerous offenses by the U.K.'s Serious Frauds Office, then showed up in court in drag complete with pink handbag and lipstick.”
Andrew Allentuck The Well-Read Investor July 30, 2001

34 July 28, 2001

Manuel Asensio is every investor's best friend [...] his firm scours the investment world [...] in the process, Asensio has uncovered numerous cases of outright fraud.
Christopher Mayer Ludwig von Mises Institute and Indi Community News

33 July 27, 2001

“And what a publicity machine it is. At first glance, reviewing the press releases at the company's website, you might think Research Frontiers is a hotbed of technological wonder. Asensio provides intriguing evidence that there's less than meets the eye. Asensio went farther in a prepared statement.”
Tom Jacobs The Motley Fool July 27, 2001

32 June 11, 2001

Don’t sell this short-seller short.
Bethany McLean, Fortune

31 June 11, 2001

For the better part of the past decade [Asensio's] made his living by taking a contrarian stance on stocks that everyone else seems to love.
Bethany McLean, Fortune

30 May 22, 2001

Love him or hate him -- and he is widely reviled by many stockholders of the companies he targets --Asensio's book is well worth reading.
Whitney Tilson, The Motley Fool

29 May 16, 2001

Manuel Asensio is on the warpath. One of the leading short sellers on Wall Street, he's on the phone calling lawyers, editors, public officials--anyone who will listen--to his complaint about VeriSign. . . The issue is pretty obscure and Asensio is a stock trader, not a bureaucrat, so why does he care? He has a short position.
Dan Ackman Forbes.com

28 May 14, 2001

Anyone who was silly enough to follow [Jack] Grubman's advice didn't get to stay in never-never land for long. In early March outspoken short-seller Manuel Asensio released the first in a series of devastating reports saying that Winstar's common stockholders had a "far greater probability of losing their entire investment than they realize." …"Winstar is like a Broadway sketch," says Asensio, who dismisses the analysts as "idiots." …The response from the analyst camp? Buy! Salomon and CSFB, Winstar's bankers on its high-yield deal, were the company's most vociferous defenders. "There are not serious default concerns on [Winstar's] bonds," said Grubman on March 8. He characterized Asensio's report as "incomplete, inaccurate, or inconsistent with our analysis." …. [On April 18] Winstar announced that it was filing for bankruptcy.
Bethany McLean, Fortune

27 May 5, 2001

Along with other journalists, I have made use of Asensio's materials, though not without checking it first. When I did, it turned out to be quite reliable.
John Dizard, Financial Times

26 April 25, 2001

Jack Grubman dismissed the work of Asensio, a well-known shortseller who predicted, almost to the day, Winstar's demise, as someone who 'lacks an understanding of the CLEC industry.' Asensio, it turns out, understood this industry far better than Grubman.
Jim Cramer, TheStreet.com

25 April 16, 2001

Asensio is a cult figure among some investors....his unmatched six-year record for spotting over hyped and fraudulent stocks, makes him very unpopular on Wall Street.
Publishers Weekly

24 September 17, 2000

Manuel Asensio is a prominent short seller who has prospered by targeting companies that he believes are misrepresenting their businesses to investors.
Christopher Mayer Ludwig von Mises Institute The Free Market

23 April 20, 1999

[Asensio] concluded with a prediction that Turbodyne stock would fall below $1 a share. [It fell to a $0.01 low.]
Benjamin Mark Cole, Los Angeles Times

22 April 20, 1999

Playing a pivotal role in the downfall of Turbodyne was the well-known New York short trader Manuel Asensio, who released a bluntly worded report...
Benjamin Mark Cole, Los Angeles Times

21 February 15, 1999

Well-known hedge fund manager Manuel Asensio, who runs Asensio & Co., claims that WinStar's network is inferior to its competitors' and that its management is too promotional. He snorts "So what?" when WinStar hypes that it owns the largest share of licenses in the 38-gigahertz frequency.
Julie Creswell, Fortune

20 January 2, 1999

Asensio casts a long shadow on Wall Street [...] there is little question that Mr. Asensio is intent on his work.
Amanda Lang, Financial Post

19 November 22, 1998

Manuel Asensio and his team of analysts have made it to their passion to detect fraud in the securities market
Katja Dofel, Euro am Sonntag

18 November 9, 1998

Few doubt that Asensio is battle tested.
Craig Karmin, The New Republic

17 October 23, 1998

Asensio's record for spotting dubious and overpriced enterprises is simply unmatched ...
The Motley Fool

16 July 13, 1998

Short-sellers play a valuable role in the market....certainly the record of Manuel Asensio, perhaps the most notorious of short-sellers, testifies to that.
James Surowiecki, New York Magazine

15 July 9, 1998

The current uproar over the Dreyfus manager erupted when Manuel Asensio, a New York investor who specializes in short selling, accused Dreyfus of [....] wrongful utilization of investors' money.
Edward Wyatt, The New York Times

14 June 15, 1998

The hottest bear to date: Asensio….BioTime is down 55% since January.
Ronald Boone, Jr. and Robert J. Sherwood Forbes

13 June 10, 1998

Mr. Asensio warned in a September article in this newspaper that ErgoBilt faced problems. He views “it as a terminal short,” meaning he believes that stock will soon be worth nothing. (ErgoBilt stock soon became worthless.)
Jonathan Weil, The Wall Street Journal

12 March 11, 1998

The controversy over Mr. Asensio is reigniting the debate over short-selling and the role it plays in the stock market, a debate that stretches back to Jesse Livermore, the "stock operator" who shook the markets early in [the 20th] century.
Leslie Eaton, New York Times

11 January 7, 1998

Manuel Asensio, a New York short-seller [...] is taking on the granddaddy of stock buyers: Fidelity Investments.
Beth Healey, Boston Herald

10 January 7, 1998

[Asensio is] No poster boy for subtlety
Beth Healy, Boston Herald

9 November 30, 1997

Despite signing a lucrative marketing deal with a major pharmaceutical company, Zonagen has seen its stock price tumble 25% over the last two weeks after receiving a negative report from a short seller [Asensio].
Jennifer Darwin, Houston Business Journal

8 November 30, 1997

The people at Schering-Plough have forgotten more about drug development and regulatory strategy that this guy Asensio will ever know. [Schering failed to get Vasomax approved and lost its entire investment.]
Jennifer Darwin, Houston Business Journal

7 November 24, 1997

Asensio’s work is well-reputed.
John Westergaard The Weekly Interpreter

6 June 16, 1997

[Asensio] has gained prominence for his public war of words with Diana Corp.-- a war that he has clearly won, with Diana’s shares plummeting 97% over the 12 months.
Gary Weiss, BusinessWeek

5 June 14, 1997

At bottom, what gives shorts an edge is sheer shoe leather. ``Shoe leather'' might well be Manuel Asensio's middle name.
Gary Weiss, BusinessWeek

4 June 14, 1997

at bottom, what gives shorts an edge is sheer shoe leather. "Shoe leather" might well be Manuel Asensio's middle name.
businessweek.com

3 February 28, 1997

Diana has gone from a red-hot stock to little more than all the nasty things Asensio said the company was when he made a multi-million-dollar bet against it.
Peter Kendall, The Business Journal

2 February 28, 1997

Instead of playing the game with his cards to his chest, [Asensio] finds flagrant instances of overvaluation and lays his cards out of the table when the betting is at its peak.
Peter Kendall, Business Journal

1 September 13, 1996

[Asensio] infuriates company management, particularly where Asensio has determined that the company’s products do not work
Washington UPI