Internet retailer Overstock is really up against when they are battling Amazon. Now it's going to be even more difficult for them since their CEO admitted to assisting with the "Russia investigation."
Since Monday the online retailer's stock dropped by 36 percent, which is their biggest two-day hit in 11 years, according to Bloomberg News.
The plummet started when CEO Patrick Byrne made a statement about the "deep state." Stockholders have abandoned the stock because the CEO is an unhinged nut.
Overstock shares are down 34% since this Monday press release from its CEO about the Deep State and Men in Black. What a world. pic.twitter.com/fdhP3CzPwp
— ?Tae Kim (@firstadopter) August 14, 2019
"Starting in 2015 I (operating under the belief that I was helping legitimate law enforcement efforts) assisted in what are now known as the ‘Clinton Investigation’ and the ‘Russian Investigation,’" Byrde said on the Overstock website. "It was the third time in my life I helped the Men in Black."
“I will speak no more on the subject,” Byrde continued. “Instead, having lived in places lacking Rule of Law and having witnessed the consequences of its absence, I plan on sitting back and watching the United States Department of Justice re-establish Rule of Law in our country.”
There were no specifics given away. It appears that his statement was a response to an independent journalist's piece on the Russia probe.
Byrne has a history of making strange statements. At one point he compared Overstock's cryptocurrency goals to the polio vaccine, according to the report from Bloomberg News.
More on the story from Bloomberg:
“What you have here is a highly controversial CEO and another example of something that’s controversial,” D.A. Davidson analyst Tom Forte said in an interview. He has a buy rating on the stock. “There are times like right now where that has a negative impact on the performance of the stock.”
Overstock had been riding high after investors cheered the company’s second-quarter earnings report on Thursday that revealed a narrower-than-expected loss on an adjusted Ebitda basis. The stock closed the week at the highest levels since October. Now, the two-day slide has erased more than a month of gains.
“The frustrating part is that the legacy home e-commerce business has returned to positive cash flow,” said Forte, one of two Wall Street analysts covering the company. “The two assets -- e-commerce and blockchain -- are incredibly well positioned.”
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From Amazon to Google to Facebook and now Overstock, it's hard to keep track of what these crazy CEOs are up to. While I did lump Overstock in with that group, the craziness of their CEO is very different than those from Amazon, Google and Facebook.