Stockwatch: Pantomime Season Comes Early

The critiques and revelations surrounding the business practices of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. continued last week with a second successive Monday morning press conference to refute some of the more recent accusations levelled against it. This was followed by a Friday morning marathon press conference held by one of its biggest hedge fund shareholders in an attempt to recover some of the value lost from the fund's Valeant holding. The revelations and refutations concerning Valeant have come to resemble a pantomime with the company in the role of villain, and the list of traditional pantomime characters was bolstered by companies reporting their third-quarter earnings last week.