353 days ago
In the bad old days ShareSoc was run by a fellow who read about a German short seller planting a bomb and concluded that this was a sign of the desperate measures we bears might undertake to satisfy our vile greed. Bears bad – Globo good. These days Cliff Weight is in charge and he is far more enlightened and based on a 2021 portfolio he ran , we have a new prize contest ( prize 500 ml of Greek Hovel 2023 olive oil). Readers SIX OF THE BEST means a portfolio of SIX NOT FIVE, HINT IS IN TITLE!
820 days ago
I start with a weather report from Chez Atwater, refer to this article, and ask any cultists to explain. Then there is a fake sheikh (or not)-hunting competition regarding ADM Energy (ADM). Finally I ask if we bears really will have a long promised tea party in 2022 as slimmer of the month Lucian Miers suggests. Heck, he is even thinking of shorting Tesla again.
1258 days ago
A very pleasant email arrives today from Cliff Weight at ShareSoc. I discuss the Damascene conversion of his organisation since the era of he who shall not be named on the matter of shorters and shorting.
1277 days ago
It is not just in mining juniors where some valuations are bonkers or among those stocks that have jumped onto the Covid bandwagon, madness seems writ large across the market. But perhaps there is a madness in valuations which cannot be justified on fundamentals and that is that the market is telling you that are living through another asset bubble?
1525 days ago
In today’s bearcast I discuss how little shorting actually takes place on the AIM Casino, I look at Eurasia (EUA) where the slience is deafening, Versarien (VRS) and at Hammerson (HMSO) where Andrew Monk should thank me for warning him off but should NOT be tempted to bottom fish after the dividend is cut this week. And 8% yield, post cut, is still illusory. Finally, I again ask you to sponsor the , now 5, Rogue Bloggers for Woodlarks HERE
1757 days ago
The NEX Lobster pot has new owners and comical David “100 billion barrels of oil” Lenigas has welcomed this on the grounds that the new bosses may ban short selling on the lobster pot. Natch this is total bollocks.
1863 days ago
Wirecard is a German company which looks like a Norfolk and walks like one and where the FT - to its credit - has done sterling work making that clear. The German regulator has responded by banning shorting of this stock. A letter from Safkhet capital to the foolish Krauts explains why this is folly. This is a very clear explanation of why it NEVER makes sense to ban shorting.
1877 days ago
Over on the LSE Asylum they are getting terribly excited about a Parliamentary Petition to ban shorting AIM stocks. If they can just find another 98,000 morons to sign (I’d start with the Frontera (FRR), Quindell (QPP) and Cloudtag (CTAG) shareholder lists) then this idea will be debated. Fraudsters must be praying they do.
2128 days ago
Tomorrow is my longest training walk yet for the Woodlarks 32 mile charity walk with Brokerman Dan. I plan to set off at 5 AM on a 26 mile trek. Think of my utter pain in this awful heat and please give £10 to a great cause HERE. I then look at the recent Radio 4 programme on shorting which was sprinkled with pompous and half-witted comments from ShareSoc. They are naive and have it all wrong and I explain why. Then I look at whether share dealing should be ethical - ref Dave Lenigas and his ramping of UK Oil & Gas (UKOG) - should we all get on board? Finally I look at the IPO of Amigo which I find revolting at every level.
2323 days ago
In this bearcast I look at the issue of share buybacks at this stage of the stockmarket cycle in general but with reference to Domino's Pizza (DOM) in particular. Then I look at the bitcoin bubble explaining why it is NOT a currency and why it will in due course pop as Goodhart's Law kicks in. But you'd be crackers to have a position either way right now
3338 days ago
As a weekend treat I canter through the biggest fallers on the market on Friday and look at which ones seem certain to issue new shares -probably at a big discount - over the coming months. It does not take me that long to come up with more than a dozen names and make a few observations about other matters to do with bears, shorting and the fine firm that is Daniel Cesspit along the way.
3576 days ago
Shorters, or bear raiders, are vilified by the ignorant as destroyers of wealth and of jobs. Some folks want shorting banned. They are wrong. The only people who benefit from banning shorting are crooks, liars and frauds. Capitalism needs shorters for it to work efficiently. Here’s why.
Let me ask you to point out how many PLCs the FCA or before it the FSA ever called out for fraud and had suspended? Er…zippo. The Regulator is a box ticker, an agency of Government and thus, by definition, useless. It would argue that its job is not to seek out fraud but to act on it when shown evidence. That might just be a defence but you then ask who will seek out fraud and thus present the authorities with that evidence?
Occasionally you have a kind hearted soul such as myself who does just that. But the reality is that spending months and months researching a company really is not going to make you rich. The ShareProphets operation generates enough revenue to allow me to spend some time doing such work but I could not afford to do it full time.
And thus the only folks who are going to have enough of a financial incentive to do such work are those in the bear raiding community. It took Gotham City many months to prove up its dossier against Spanish fraud Gowex. Now I know that Daniel Yu gets an intellectual kick
3641 days ago
Yesterday I posted a long defence of critical journalism, explaining why it is something that investors should welcome (though they rarely do). Today I move onto shorting which, I note, is one again something that some people want banned. They are wrong and this is why.
I accept that those who short are not providing what one might term a “useful” function in society. They are not creating jobs. Instinctively one might think of them as parasites. Their motive is pure greed. However shorting is risky. The most you can lose going long is 100% while your gains are in theory much greater. With shorting the reverse is true. And so it takes an odd sort of individual to sate his greed via shorting.
Having said all of that
