Ann: Beach Energy Ltd FY24 Results Presentation, page-34

Blaming shorters is a pointless distraction, in my opinion. Even at the recent peak of 3.5% it was only squeaking into the top 70. At current levels it’s not in the top 100. The company has a well-publicised and lengthy history of underperforming, it’s pretty obvious why someone wanting to short an O&G play to hedge their long exposure somewhere else would choose BPT as their short position.

As for the tried-and-tested “shorts knew” theory noted elsewhere on this thread, it’s pretty clear to me that the market was not expecting yet another reserve downgrade, all the bad washing was supposed to have been hung out already. If shorts really “knew” then the open positions would not have fallen 1.25% into results day as they have. This caught everyone by surprise.

This was the first of the FY results out for the energy sector, will be interesting to see who else disappoints or surprises next… whole sector is taking a beating though.