Shares of Herbalife (HLF) are down 44% year over year due to questionable accounting practices, and a publicly announced short-attack by Bill Ackman. To sum up this already well-publicized story, shares of Herbalife first plunged in May when David Einhorn, of Greenlight Capital, questioned how Herbalife quantifies distributors, consumers and other clients. The SEC followed suit, and in mid-August questioned Herbalife about its disclosures on sales by distributors. A formal SEC investigation appears likely sometime in 2013. Noted hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman subsequently announced a massive negative bet on shares of HLF, calling the company a ‘pyramid scheme’. As with all pyramid schemes, Ackman believes Herbalife will implode under its own weight, and HLF shares will eventually go to 0 sometime in the near future. Herbalife plans to respond publicly to these short attacks on January 10th, 2012, and defend ...