But thinking that is rather ignorant. People hear about how this kid made all this money but they don't hear about the people that he took this money from. When he posted those messages on the internet, people ended up buying the stock at a higher price and lost a considerable amount when it fell again. Those are the people that get hurt in stock fraud cases. Also, there's a good number of people out there who say what he did was no worse than what analysts do everyday.
Analysts give their opinion on a stock and occasionally, it moves the price of that stock.
But analysts do their best to accurately predict how a stock will perform and they analyze the business itself. Jonathan Lebed probably didn't care what kind of business it was, as long as he could make money by tricking other investors. Also, analysts give their opinions and predictions to help other investors, while Lebed made his to earn a profit for himself. Personally, I'm pretty disappointed with the stereotype that the media has given kids because of this. The stereotype of teenagers as impatient kids who just want to get rich quick is quite inaccurate.