I have been watching the short interest in NTC and couldn't understand it until today's announcement.
Short interest was going along at next to nothing until 15 Sep 16 and then steadily worked its way up 0.9%
by 17 Nov 16 and then went up 1.2% on 18 Nov 16. That amounts to about 6 days-to-cover, not huge but not a trivial exposure. That was four days before the nbn announcement so it is a fair bet that the short interest was not trading on that information. The shorter(s) must have been gutted when the nbn announcement came out, but still they hung on.
I am left to conclude that it is more likely that it was information about the CEO retirement that inspired the short interest.
http://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=ntc
I tried to find out David Stewart's age but without luck.
Because he is vacating the board position as well as retiring as CEO, it suggests that it might be health related. If it were otherwise it would be more normal for there to have been some earlier announcement of his intention to retire so that there could be an orderly search for a replacement and the board would have wanted to retain his knowledge and experience on the board. Today's market reaction confirms that they would have wanted him to continue on the board.
The alternative is that there has been a falling out, which seems to me to be a lot less likely to be the explanation.
As I write this, the CEO retirement announcement has reversed nearly half the price impact of the nbn FTTC announcement. Go figure.
cheers
