Yet another outbreak of foodborne illness last week at Chipotle Mexican Grill did what it usually does to the burrito chain: The stock price plummeted. It's bad news—particularly for the patrons who got sick—but it's a boon for anyone that had the foresight to short the stock.
The latest outbreak was first noted by iwaspoisoned.com, a website that crowdsources reports of customer illnesses following visits to restaurants. The goal, it says, is "safer food, safer communities and a healthier economy." Yet, as Bloomberg reported last week, hedge funds looking to profit from others' bad luck can also access a "souped up" version of the site for a $5,000 monthly fee.
Aaron Allen, principal at Aaron Allen & Associates, a restaurant industry consultancy, posited in a LinkedIn post on Monday morning that the Chipotle illness might not just be a matter of luck. "A lot of things stacked up that made it suspicious," he told Bloomberg in an interview on Monday, "and when you look at it from a statistical point of view, even more suspicious." His group has no financial interest in the chain, Allen said, and he has previously lauded the chain's pre-scandal marketing.
LOL, my co-workers and I were joking that instead of doing the negative news stories , a hedge fund hired someone to smear poop all over Chipotle.
Hedge funds also purchase twitter information, satellite images of Walmart, user credit card information, and other various bits of information. All for returns that don't justify the 2 and 20 fee.
Must be Russians. In America Chipotle causes the shits, but in Soviet Russia, the excrement comes on Chipotle!
The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Both are inherently wrong.
Looks like the only thing 1984 got wrong was the date.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Both are inherently wrong.
The guy that runs iwaspoisoned.com says he/they contact every person that has posted to ask questions and verify before allowing it to remain on the site.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Both are inherently wrong.
The guy that runs iwaspoisoned.com says he/they contact every person that has posted to ask questions and verify before allowing it to remain on the site.
So he has simply replaced the agencies that are slow to respond with him. I'd like to get that gig. Short a couple stocks through some middle men...... Nope, nothing could go wrong there.
Note, I am not saying he is or is not doing anything wrong, nor am I defending the inept gov agencies involved. Just pointing out that this kind of crowdsourced info has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Looks like the only thing 1984 got wrong was the date.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Both are inherently wrong.
The guy that runs iwaspoisoned.com says he/they contact every person that has posted to ask questions and verify before allowing it to remain on the site.
So he has simply replaced the agencies that are slow to respond with him. I'd like to get that gig. Short a couple stocks through some middle men...... Nope, nothing could go wrong there.
Note, I am not saying he is or is not doing anything wrong, nor am I defending the inept gov agencies involved. Just pointing out that this kind of crowdsourced info has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Damn, I thought I was cynical.
Any information from anyone should be taken with a grain of salt.
Vienna_Hokie wrote:The concern with all this type of stuff is it's reliability.
It's a trade-off between a bureaucratic approach where the public's ability to know is impacted by a slow moving organization which is often in bed with those it is intended to monitor (health dept, building inspectors, etc) and a free for all where people can report anything and have the ability to destroy a business that they don't like or are disgruntled by as a former employee simply by posting in an anonymous forum.
Both are inherently wrong.
The guy that runs iwaspoisoned.com says he/they contact every person that has posted to ask questions and verify before allowing it to remain on the site.
So he has simply replaced the agencies that are slow to respond with him. I'd like to get that gig. Short a couple stocks through some middle men...... Nope, nothing could go wrong there.
Note, I am not saying he is or is not doing anything wrong, nor am I defending the inept gov agencies involved. Just pointing out that this kind of crowdsourced info has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Would be pretty easy to trace/connect the dots IMO
