As previewed here, the Mark Cuban-backed Sharesleuth.com issued its first investigative piece today, absolutely skewering a company called Xethanol Corp.  You may recall the Sharesleuth.com concept discussed in the earlier post:  Cuban backs the Sharesleuth.com investigations/journalism, and tells the world right up front that he is going to be trading and/or shorting the stocks discussed in the Sharesleuth.com articles in advance of the articles' publication.  Indeed, today's article discloses that Cuban has already shorted 10,000 shares of Xethanol Corp. 

So everything seems to be clicking along according to plan for Cuban and Sharesleuth.com (find a company to skewer--check; write the article--check; short the stock pre-publication--check; publish the article--check) except for one thing:  despite the publication of the negative article at 10:05 am, the stock price has remained virtually unchanged (it closed at $6.95/share on Friday according to the article and closed today just 4 cents lower at$6.91/share, on below average volume). 

What's the problem here with this sure-fire money machine?  Why isn't the stock going down?  Does the market not find the Sharesleuth.com analysis persuasive?  Is nobody reading Sharesleuth.com yet? 

Come on, people!  Don't you realize that journalism paid for by short-sale profits can't sustain itself if the stock doesn't go down post-publication?