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’The biggest company you’ve never heard of
Unless you’re an affluent woman who’s into yoga. Or possibly an image-conscious man into running.
Or a short seller.
These types of people tend to have heard of clothing retailer LuLuLemon.
But,
Searching for Büffet
There was an interesting close in Europe on Thursday:
Bloomberg reports that DAX futures “fell as much as 4.1 percent as a cascade of trades pushed the volume in the contracts to a quarter of the daily average between 3:45 p.m.
High-growth, high-stakes at Sino-Forest
It’s Tuesday — Sino-Forest results day.
The Chinese forestry firm already stands accused of being a “stratospheric” fraud by research and short-selling outfit Muddy Waters. Today Sino-Forest is set to offer a deeper look at its finances with Q1 results.
Truthiness hurts, so go short
Pssst — want to know a juicy stock market rumour?
Are you sure?
Well, in that case you should think twice about buying, according to a Bloomberg article published on Tuesday:
Electronic news services,
Save our shorts, redux
Now here’s something you don’t see every day — calm evidence-based, consideration of the impact of short-selling (and thus, rules that prohibit short-selling, conversely) on the price and volatility of stocks.
Back to the future in shorting Spain
Back in May, at the peak of the European sovereign debt crisis, the Spanish stock market regulator announced it would ramp up rules on the disclosure of short positions on Spanish stocks from June onwards.
Athens is open for short-selling
Why are we showing you a chart of the Athens Stock Exchange?
And a bunch of Greek banks?
Because Wednesday, September 1, is the day the Hellenic Capital Market Commission’s ban
A stunned short-seller never forgets
For sure the 2008 financial crisis lingers on in the minds’ of long-only investors, but perhaps it’s surprising to hear the episode scarred the shorts too. And not just because they got banned, scapegoated or squeezed.
The FSA is adamant shorts will be outed
Not even death will get in the way of the FSA’s determination to disclose shorts.
The Financial Services Authority — otherwise known as the Britain’s premier zombie financial services regulator — has decided it definitely will be using its remaining powers to ferret out those scurvy short-sellers.
‘Berlin has decided to extend Leerverkaufsverbot’
Germany on Tuesday stepped up its campaign against short selling, and according to the Handelsblatt, is moving forward at speed (via Google Translate):
The federal government wants to ban naked short selling of shares,
Take HDAT, Greek politicians
From the Trojan Speculators File comes this FT report:
A Greek former European Commissioner has accused the country’s central bank of encouraging naked short-selling of Greek bonds by altering the regulations on its electronic bond trading platform last year.
Smoking the shorts, euro sovereign edition
Monday’s sovereign CDS action, in a Markit chart…
Related links:
Eurozone bank CDS goes squeaky-pop – FT Alphaville
The smell of burnt fingers wafts across Europe… – FT Alphaville
The smell of burnt fingers wafts across Europe…
Monday’s euro-action, post the announcement of a package of market-stabilising measures:
Are the euro shorts in pain? Remember, there were a lot of them.
According to The Street:
The extreme market positioning is not simply in the record short euro spec positions at the IMM (which is now more than twice the record short set in 2008),
Oh, those naughty short selling…US senators?
Hats off to the Wall Street Journal for delving into the two-facedness of US legislators, at least as far as short selling is concerned.
In a story published on Monday, the Journal reported that “some members of Congress made risky bets with their own money that US stocks or bonds would fall during the financial crisis”.
The men who short-sold the world
Well, not quite. But shorting specialists Data Explorers did come up trumps on Monday with a report which took a global perspective on the last twelve months’ short and long positions.
According to Data Explorers,
Dear Vikram Pandit…
Dear Vikram Pandit,
FT Alphaville was a little bemused by your testimony to the Congressional Oversight Panel on Thursday, in which you blamed your bank’s near collapse on the nefarious activities of short-sellers.
Short-selling disclosure: the devil’s in the details
Funny. The Ides of March isn’t until the 15th, but it looks like everyone’s out to get CESR.
The Committee of European Securities Regulators has already drawn fire for its short-selling disclosure proposals,
The scale of sovereign short-selling
The sovereign debt most targeted by short-sellers is not what you might expect, according to DataExplorers.
We’re not entirely sure of the methodology here, but the short-selling specialist has presented this interesting chart.
Short-selling villain casting call
Because only one thing could upstage the moral terpitude of corporate-raider Gordon Gekko — the pure depravity of an evil short-selling monster of Mayfair — the sequel to Wall Street is centred around the murky world of hedge funds,
Tabulating financial reform, Darling
Chancellor Alistair Darling’s proposals for financial reform is now available online. A summary:
Related links:
Darling outlines tougher bank regulation – FT
Das Volkswagen short squeeze Déjà vu-Erlebnis
We mentioned last week that certain short-sellers were steadily building positions in Volkswagen — again.
They appeared to have forgotten their last shorting experience with the German carmaker — which resulted in the biggest short squeeze in history.
VW investors forget the pain of burnt fingers
Short-sellers appear to have forgotten what happened the last time they dallied with Volkswagen – nothing less than biggest short squeeze in history.
Because on Wednesday, DataExplorers – which tracks short interest – noted that the short base for Volkswagen had crept up to 3 per cent,
April is the cruelest month for shorts
Hedge Fund Research‘s latest performance stats are out and it looks like April fooled the shorts (ahem).
Related link:
Evil short-selling monsters revealed – FT Alphaville
Evil short-selling monsters revealed
… in this video, from Locatestock, which helps people find shares to short.
Watch as the evil short-sellers, part of Locatestock’s “High Five” programme, clap with glee, shrieking “I love a good profit”
The IBs of March
Last month:
After a meeting with President Barack Obama, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s (NYSE:JPM – News) Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said that March was “a little tough” in comments to CNBC. The bank’s shares fell nearly 5 percent.
That’s a strange statement considering equity markets rallied in March,
Dear Hector Sants…
John McFall, chairman of the Treasury Committee, has penned a letter to the FSA’s Hector Sants expressing his deep concern over “anecdotal evidence” that the monsters of Mayfair have been allowed to run amok on defenceless UK banks.
Drop your shorts
The FSA surprised many people this week when it announced plans to lift the ban on short selling of UK financials.
However, it seems the City watchdog is still not entirely happy with the practice of shorting,
Save our shorts
On the basis of this research, the associations see no case for continued bans on short selling as there is no strong evidence that these have been effective in reducing share price volatility or limiting share price falls.
Revenge of the shorts
And so it begins.
Everything was oh-so-rosy half an hour ago.
Then it all turned around quicker than you could say, “canIborrowthatstockplease.”
The DJIA is currently off just shy of one per cent,