Arguments in the Andrew Left trial have wrapped up.
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The jury in the trial of Andrew Left was presented with dueling portraits of the short-seller on Thursday: one, a law-breaking schemer, and the other, a clever trader just doing his job.That's how the prosecution and the defense painted the famed investor in closing arguments in the closely watched case. Left could learn his fate as soon as Friday, when the jury convenes for deliberations.In his closing, Assistant US Attorney Matthew Reilly told the Los Angeles federal jury that Left was duplicitous, or as he put it: "tweeting with one hand and trading with the other."The government contends that Left, the founder of influential Citron Research, made more than $20 million in profits by manipulating the market and deceiving retail investors.They say he would build a position for a company's stock, publish a report with a target price, then quickly trade at a different price.During their closing, the prosecution repeatedly displayed Left's own messages and quotes on slides. "We can destroy CRON," he wrote about the company Cronos, one of the stocks he's accused of manipulating.The government also argued Left misled hedge funds, the media, cable news audiences, the SEC, and investors by setting the "bait with a tweet."Left's team argued that the government spent the nearly three-week trial trying to criminalize ordinary trading behavior. "They cherry-picked 19 tweets and called it the universe," defense attorney Eric Rosen told jurors.He said the government ignored broader trading data showing most of Left's rapid exits from his positions occurred without any tweet or report."Immediately was a term invented to cover conduct that is not illegal," Rosen said.He also pointed to Cronos, saying that CEO Mike Gorenstein, who testified for the government, could not identify false statements in Left's reports, and that retail investors who testified said they did not trade based on his tweets."The government wants you to convict a trader for trading like a trader," Rosen said. "This is not a case. This is them sifting through thousands and thousands of emails to invent a case."
