Andrew Left
July 9, 1970
United States
Financial analyst, financial writer, short seller
1995 – present
Citron Research
Activist short selling
- Stephanie Left
4
Early life and career[edit]
Left was born in a Detroit suburb[14] to a Jewish family and later moved with his family to Coral Springs, Florida. He attended Coral Springs High School where he was a member of the debate team and president of the Jewish youth group.[15] He attended Northeastern University in 1993.[16]
Left's first job was with Universal Commodity Corp, a high-pressure commodities brokerage firm that hired salespeople to make cold calls and push "questionable investments."[14] Left quit in March 1994, after 9 months with the company. When the National Futures Association sanctioned the firm in December 1998, Left, along with every other former employee, was sanctioned for three years along with being required to take an ethics-training course as part of the probe into the firm for making false statements to sell commodity futures contracts.[12] The National Futures Association stated Left “made false and misleading statements to cheat, defraud or deceive a customer in violation of NFA compliance rules.” [13]
Left became active in short selling by the age of 24. He has cited his experience with Universal Commodity Corp as the reason he started short selling stocks promoted by boiler-room scams.[4] When the boiler rooms eventually went out of business, Left started shorting stocks from bulletin-board scams, in which people would send out email blasts saying, "Buy this stock now or you'll miss out."[15]
In April 1999, Left became president and CEO of Detour Media. He was named director of the company in November 1999.[16][17][18]
Left switched to shorting the stocks full-time,[14] using his own research to publish free reports on firms he feels are overvalued or engaged in fraud.[4] In 2001, he founded StockLemon.com, now known as Citron Research. According to Left, he has made profits every year since he started short selling.[19] He was a keynote speaker at the 2017 and 2018 Harvard Business School Investment Conference.[20][21]
Philanthropy[edit]
In 2018, following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Left created a scholarship for students of the school. The award provides five seniors per year between 2018 and 2021 a $10,000 scholarship.[67]