Ann: Westpac announces $3.5 billion off-market share buy-back, page-384

The short interest for WBC yesterday is 3,187,086 shares. That's brave by the short-sellers as they are not only contented with shorting CBA, they also attack other banks as well. This sort of stock can only move 8% in a day due to short-selling, never due to fund-managers dumping to get out. Attacking WBC when it was already down by about 12% shows they just don't have a lot of brains. They can be so smart and so dumb at the same time! Go figure With hefty dividend and buyback, WBC is the last one in my mind to short! I don't even attempt to sell calls to get a premium. It may hang around at this share price for a little while then the Santa rally comes, and boom, it could explode to the upside at the magnitude of 4% in a day and 6-7% within a week frying the shorts. It happened so many times before even for a benign bank stock.

The sign that short sellers are going silly now is actually a positive sign. It only means WBC will recover quicker than it would have otherwise Every day WBC goes down a bit, I sell 1-2 puts to SLOOOWLY lock in an opportunity to buy at a lower price. The options volume is so low and it seems that I am only playing with the market maker! But that's fine. They have to provide liquidity to keep their license.