CBD products<\/a> that “really helped” with stress and pain management.<\/p>\nBanks said he was on vacation with his wife and saw his investment had already sprouted to $190,000. He said he remembered thinking “Oh my god” and being “just so excited.”<\/p>\n
“It was like I had been watering this plant for weeks, and here it is,” he said.<\/p>\n
Banks said that shortly after he returned from vacation, Left shared negative comments about the company, and the stock price plummeted. While he still believed in the product, he said he couldn’t justify the “beatdown” he was taking as the stock price tanked.<\/p>\n
“It was like trying to catch a tiger <\/strong>tail. You couldn’t catch up with the thing,” he said.<\/p>\nBanks sold his CVSI shares, losing around $80,000 of his initial investment. He took about $30,000 of the remaining funds and invested in another cannabis stock, hoping to recoup some of his losses. This time, he invested in a company called Namaste.<\/p>\n
Banks testified he saw Left in a TV appearance in which the short-seller said he believed Namaste’s share price would go to zero, and that his reaction was “simply horror.”<\/p>\n
“When he said he was going to short it to zero, I saw my funds going to zero,” he said.<\/p>\n
Banks testified that by the time he sold, he had lost around 80% of his investment in Namaste, calling it “devastating.”<\/p>\n
The defense <\/strong>said Left never recommended anyone buy CVSI or Namaste. They also argued that Left’s view on Namaste turned out to be right, and that if Banks had sold all his shares the day Left issued the negative report, he would’ve lost less money than he did by selling them later.<\/p>\nAnother retail investor<\/a> \u2014 the kind the prosecution is accusing Left of targeting \u2014 also testified on Thursday. Adam Gray was working as a car salesman in South Dakota in 2018 when he said he began trading and learning about stocks.<\/p>\nGray said Left was one of the people he’d follow for their perspective, but that he started to see Left’s behavior as potentially fraudulent. Gray, who said he was closely following cannabis stocks, said Left was betting long on one cannabis company while sharing negative information about two of its competitors.<\/p>\n
“To me, it just seemed off, like that shouldn’t be happening,” he said.<\/p>\n
Gray eventually sent a tip to the Securities and Exchange Commission<\/a> about Left. It’s unclear if that tip sparked the investigation into Left.<\/p>\nLeft’s defense said his reports about the cannabis companies he criticized were accurate.<\/p>\n
The trial is set to continue on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n