Joshua Mitts

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Joshua Mitts
Academic background
Education
Academic work
DisciplineSecurities Law
Institutions

Joshua Mitts is an American legal scholar. He is associate professor of law and Milton Handler Fellow at Columbia Law School.[1] He is known for his research into short activism and its alleged market abuses.[2][3]

Biography[edit]

Mitts received his B.A. from Georgetown University in 2010, J.D. from Yale Law School, and Ph.D. from Columbia Business School in 2018.[1]

He joined the Columbia Law School faculty in 2017.[4] In 2022, Mitts became the center of media attention after having published a number of analyses on trading data as well as the online presence of short sellers and suggested that certain players were manipulating the market.[4][5] Mitt used extensive data he gathered online to point to potentially manipulative and illicit trading activities and alleged securities fraud by investors.[6]

Mitts' work has become influential in guiding ongoing federal probes into certain activist short sellers and hedge funds such as Muddy Waters Research that publish negative reports on certain companies to lower their stock.[4][7][6]

Mitts also argued that the GameStop short squeeze was case of traders banding together to take down hedge funds.[8][9][10]

In 2023, he co-wrote a research article indicating a potential link between those with foreknowledge of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and shorting of an ETF that tracks Israeli stocks.[11]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Joshua Mitts". www.law.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  2. ^ Celarier, Michelle (2022-02-12). "Are Activist Short Sellers Misunderstood?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  3. ^ Baer, Liz Hoffman and Justin (2022-02-16). "WSJ News Exclusive | Justice Department Targets 'Spoofing' and 'Scalping' in Short Seller Investigation". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  4. ^ a b c Prentice, Chris (2022-03-18). "How a Columbia professor became the scourge of activist short sellers". Reuters. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  5. ^ "Columbia Law School Embroiled In Short Sales Kerfuffle". Above the Law. 2022-03-21. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  6. ^ a b Korn, Liz Hoffman and Melissa (2022-03-19). "Carson Block's Latest Short Target Is a Columbia Law Professor". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  7. ^ "Columbia Law Professor Joshua Mitts is the latest short target of Carson Block". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  8. ^ Academics Question SEC Meme-Stock Narrative, retrieved 2022-04-25
  9. ^ "Gaming GameStop: Faculty Experts Weigh in on Reddit and Meme Trading". www.law.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  10. ^ "Meme-Stock Frenzy Gets a Fresh Look That Questions SEC Narrative". Bloomberg.com. 2022-02-14. Retrieved 2022-04-25.
  11. ^ Jackson, Jr., Robert J.; Mitts, Joshua (6 December 2023). "Trading on Terror?". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4652027. Retrieved 29 December 2023.