Short Activity in PNV, page-6564

And in response to Bill Gates...

This is about manipulation then, not shorting? All of what you talk about happens far more in long investing than in short investing. If anything, shorting actually prevents manipulation by both providing liquidity and also putting a cap on over exuberance/speculative bubbles. It gives market participants the ability to profit on identifying scams, fraud, fake news, over exuberance etc. As I said before, there's a reason we hear of pump and dumps but never dump and pumps, almost all manipulation occurs via long investors. I've seen on countless occasions as well both companies and the media coming up with fake news to promote stocks. MNS is a recent example of a company that wasn't exactly truthful to investors... I think we should do everything it takes to remove manipulation of course, but removing shorting would have zero impact, and if anything could see the amount of manipulation increase. Whenever I hear of anti-shorting arguments it really sounds to me more like people not wanting those who bet against them to participate in markets. I don't think people really have a problem with manipulators though, as I never hear criticism of them when prices are going up fast for no reason, only when prices are falling. Again as I said, last year shorters lost $200 billion in what should have been an easy market to profit from shorting. Doesn't exactly seem like the shorters have much control of prices...

In the case of PNV, shorters simply identified that the healthcare market had overheated quite a bit and rode the pessimistic wave. What we saw in healthcare stocks was (imo) a healthy retrace, enabling new investors to enter at bargain prices (thereby encouraging greater participation in markets and preventing a price bubble). However that has changed now and the price has rebounded, so unless they're smart enough to cover they're about to lose all of their profits. They didn't cause the price to go down, many healthcare stocks fell by a far greater amount compared to PNV, just like they have no control over the current rebound we have recently enjoyed.