Couldn't agree more and like ZIP, shorts have inevitably...

Couldn't agree more and like ZIP, shorts have inevitably influenced the share price of ASM to be pushed down way below arguable intrinsic value, but blaming the boogey man of shorts every time ASM share price goes down gets in the way decent discussion of ASM and it's shareholders and trading.

Very unpopular to say so, on here, but Hot Copper forums are full of retail investors blaming share price falls on shorters, rather than past exuberant pricing in stocks they own that encouraged the shorters to take on such risky positions that require continued funding, unlike longs. There are very few studies showing clear inverse correlation between shorting levels and share pricing - if only investing was that easy.

Stocks in OZ rarely get over 10% short. Try the US where GameStop was technically 140% short for a brief period. How could it be more than 100% people ask? Exactly. Most people don't understand even the mechanisms of shorting or reporting. Try and find one article on Tesla's massive 2020 shorts that understood the massive convertible debt load relationship for all the discussion (ZIP not unrelated there) i.e. the shorts were not simple naked share punts. Shorts complicated by index arbitrage, derivatives, debt loads/type etc, etc.

ASM, always requiring some degree of debt to get Dubbo off the ground was a bit stupidly priced at as high as $13 ahead of the fastest interest rate tightening cycle in history. I congratulate shorters who had the proverbials and went short over $10 (and feel sorry for longs who got caught in the hype around the company at the time).

its just an opinion, and we've all got them, I think short investors who retain or increase naked shorts down here are a bit silly doing so after the Rare Earth USA deal. It was pivotal in ASM's future. I've been on these threads saying as much and buying ASM from long investors.selling or shorters, who stupidly in my opinion,, have increased reported shorts from 4.772 Millon shares to 5,748 million shares since. Now that a very real influence on the share price per your comments.

Suspect we will indeed get a short squeeze on the next offtake announcement by ASM. But there will inevitably be some shareholders selling into such a rally too. We can't have it both ways as shareholders, rejoicing shorters buying on short squeezes but then blaming them when the rises don't hold too.

(sorry, long-winded, should have just said 'burn shorts, burn')