US Justice Department Probes Super Micro Computer (yahoo.com) 22
According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Super Micro Computer after short-seller Hindenburg Research alleged "accounting manipulation" at the AI server maker. Super Micro's shares fell about 12% following the report. Reuters reports: The WSJ report, which cited people familiar with the matter, said the probe was at an early stage and that a prosecutor at a U.S. attorney's office recently contacted people who may be holding relevant information. The prosecutor has asked for information that appeared to be connected to a former employee who accused the company of accounting violations, the report added.
Super Micro had late last month delayed filing its annual report, citing a need to assess "its internal controls over financial reporting," a day after Hindenburg disclosed a short position and made claims of "accounting manipulation." The short-seller had cited a three-month investigation that included interviews with former senior employees of Super Micro and litigation records. Hindenburg's allegations included evidence of undisclosed related-party transactions, failure to abide by export controls, among other issues. The company had denied Hindenburg's claims.
Super Micro had late last month delayed filing its annual report, citing a need to assess "its internal controls over financial reporting," a day after Hindenburg disclosed a short position and made claims of "accounting manipulation." The short-seller had cited a three-month investigation that included interviews with former senior employees of Super Micro and litigation records. Hindenburg's allegations included evidence of undisclosed related-party transactions, failure to abide by export controls, among other issues. The company had denied Hindenburg's claims.
Nothing to see here... (Score:2)
They were just using the AI to do their accounting.
AI is just doing the best job it can do! Cut it some slack here.
Re: (Score:2)
AI can't (yet) do accounting, but quants actually do use AI to detect accounting irregularities that may indicate suspicious behavior.
Re: (Score:2)
AI is good at pattern recognition so that makes sense it could be used to finding irregularities in accounting or taxes in general. From all accounts heard tell, AI doesn't do logic or much math. AI doesn't understand things. It can spot patterns though. So when you train it on a good data set to spot accounting irregularities or even cancer screenings, it makes sense it could spot more of these then a human.
I figure we'll get there one day but it won't matter without major changes to resource distribution
Re: (Score:3)
all our math is checked by an intel pentium cpu
Re: (Score:2)
So when you train it on a good data set [...]
The concept is good, but I'm not sure a good data set exists in real life :)
Re: (Score:2)
It would make sense that an imperfect species such ourselves wouldn't be able to make perfect training data. Good enough will have to do I guess.
Re: (Score:1)
AI definitely can do accounting, probably better than humans. All you're doing is importing data into databases that make simple calculations, finance jobs should be completely automatable.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah but it can't do the important accounting tasks like Hollywood accounting or doing the Irish trick.
Re: (Score:1)
It probably can do better, the laws are written by the people that do the accounting after all. You could just replace all the tax laws with a simple constitutional amendment: all final sales will be taxed at a federal level at a rate of up to 10% and state level up to 5% exempting essential food, medicine, non-profit and education, no other taxes will be levied.
Per ChatGPT if you eliminate the welfare state apparatus, this is possible with ~15% tax rate, even including the current defense spending. If you
Super Micro Computer (Score:2)
That's such an 1980s-sounding name. Brings back memories of getting dumped because I had no people skills.
Oh wait, that was Tuesday.
Re: (Score:2)
Still better than the 1910-1930s sounding name Hindenburg. What's next, Bismarck?
Hindenburg Research lol (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
There's a huge cost to hold a short position. The US SEC doesn't allow naked shorts, so you have to go through stock loan and all that. You pay money, on a continual basis, for the loan, and you have a huge potential for loss. This is not a theoretical huge loss potential, Porsche got nailed hard on a short squeeze, in Germany that did allow naked shorts at the time. Almost killed the company, and weakened it to the point of being a takeover target.
market manipulation? probably? but, you buying a stock
PHB-to-English Translator (Score:1)
Translation: "We gotta shred lotta shit quickly!'
"the AI server maker" (Score:2)
It's not an AI server maker, it's a server maker. They also sell servers with GPUs.
OEM (Score:2)
SuperMicro does a *lot* of stuff. They OEM parts for other companies. They make beige box servers for other companies to build turnkey systems. And, of course, plain old servers.
Time to buy some shares and break out the popcorn (Score:1)
Heidelberg is now just another mudslinger trying to profit by a model that is increasingly flawed.
When was the last time Heidelberg was actually true is getting to be a distant memory, receding fast.
Super Micro Computer stocks are getting cheap for those who wish to make a profit.
Dangerous (Score:2)
It doesn't even matter if Hindenburg is right in his allegations. The fact that he shorted the stock just before black tarring the company should be enough to warrant an investigation.
Re: (Score:2)
What investigation? He saw bad financials, he did a short, he talked about the short and the financials.
Hindenburg Research (Score:2)
Hindenburg Research isn't a person, it's a company, and this sort of thing is exactly its business model [wikipedia.org]: "Hindenburg Research prepares an investigation report on a target company by going through its public records, internal corporate documents and by talking to its employees. The report is then circulated to Hindenburg's limited partners, who, together with Hindenburg, take a short position in the target company before publicly releasing the report. Hindenburg takes profits if the target company's share p