Shares of Genius Electronic Optical Co (GSEO, 玉晶光), a camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones, fluctuated wildly in Taipei trading yesterday after the company denied having shared sensitive information regarding its operations with a market analyst.
“The company and its chairman have never been visited by KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) analyst Kuo Ming-chi (郭明錤). Kuo’s reports are based on his own research. The company has nothing to do with his reports,” GSEO said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Sunday afternoon.
Financial magazine 168 Weekly on Saturday reported that investors filed complaints with the Financial Supervisory Commission, saying that GSEO chairman Jones Chen (陳天慶) allegedly leaked sensitive information to Kuo about its camera lens orders from Apple in a bid to manipulate the company’s stock price.
The magazine’s report sparked heated discussion over the weekend, as Kuo is a well-known tech analyst, because of his ability to accurately predict details regarding Apple’s new products.
Kuo and KGI were not available for comment as of press time.
GSEO said the company and Chen had never attempted to manipulate the stock price.
“The groundless report has severely tainted the company’s and the chairman’s reputations. We are mulling legal action to protect our reputation and investors’ interests,” the filing said.
GSEO’s stock price plummeted more than 5 percent to NT$430 shortly after the opening bell at 9am, lower than the company’s monthly average price of NT$489.98, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed.
The price shifted in the negative territory for hours before it surged back into the positive at about 1pm and closed at NT$472.5, up 3.28 percent from the previous trading day.
A total of 9.69 million shares were traded during the session, with 10,000 buy orders pending for today’s session, the exchange’s data showed.
GSEO’s stock price has risen as much as 308.48 percent since the beginning of this year, the data showed.
The exchange has asked GSEO to publicly disclose its monthly financial statement seven times this year due to the firm’s volatile changes in stock price, according to the firm’s filings.
GSEO’s accumulated net income of NT$154.48 million (US$5.13 million) in the first half of this year, compared with a net loss of NT$594.75 million during the same period last year.
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