Looks like its shorters season all over again
(apologies for the rather lengthy pos
t - just thought I'd share the findings).I/Shorters build up leading to and on report dayBeen tracking the shorts activity leading up to the report day - as I was a bit suspicious they'd be at it again...
Was basically waiting for Shortman to confirm the shorts figures for report day (19th Aug) just to cross-check the ASX data - and boy wasn't I deceived!!!
*Figures below where sourced from ASX shortsell data, Shortman, as well as Commsec Trading activity (for daily volumes).
*I've started the data tracking from
Monday 10th August 2020 - which gives us a good
7 trading days leading up to the report day. Therefore 10-Aug-20 is used as reference for data assessment.
*For each trading day, I've captured: the total shorts on register, the shorts % to total shares, the next shorts increase (computed), daily trading volume, and finally shorts % on trading day (computed)
| Trading Date | 10-Aug-20 | 11-Aug-20 | 12-Aug-20 | 13-Aug-20 | 14-Aug-20 | 17-Aug-20 | 18-Aug-20 | 19-Aug-20 |
|---|
| 1 | Shorts total | 31,326,005 | 31,754,110 | 31,990,139 | 32,285,150 | 32,525,094 | 33,335,435 | 33,900,381 | 36,951,910 |
|---|
| 2 | Shorts %
(w.r.t. total shares) | 4.23% | 4.29% | 4.32% | 4.36% | 4.40% | 4.51% | 4.58% | 4.99% |
|---|
| 3 | Net Shorts increase (w.r.t. previous trading day) | - | 428,105 | 236,029 | 295,011 | 239,944 | 810,341 | 564,946 | 3,051,529 |
|---|
| 4 | Trading Volume (source commsec) | - | 2,614,104 | 2,150,366 | 2,069,874 | 1,755,029 | 3,786,239 | 4,426,462 | 11,715,042 |
|---|
| 5 | % shorted on trading day | - | 16.38% | 10.98% | 14.25% | 13.67% | 21.40% | 12.76% | 26.05% |
|---|
Figures speak for themselves
You can definitely see a nice shorts build up leading to report day (19-Aug) - before an absolute shorts schnitz-fest on D-day.
*2,574,376 shorts added in the 6 days to report day, and
*3,051,529 shorts added on report day alone!! and at what percentage on that day!!
Trading on reporting day, and price weakness since - speaks for itself...
I'd be keen to see the shorts data from trading day onward - my hunch is an increase in shorts...
II/A2M price seasonality - for Aug and Sept
Another finding has been the price seasonality on A2M in recent years - that is to say the amount of time it had a great month vs a not-so-great month.
Found the following graph on the Shortman website (
https://www.shortman.com.au/seasonality?q=A2M)
Given A2M has always been reporting in August,
You can clearly see that, on average we have a generally smaller/calmer August and September, before rebuilding and marching up again in Oct and Nov (
did someone say Singles Day?).I believe
@h00ts did mention that seasonality too, on one of the charts he posted in this thread - so kudos to you.
Morale of the story:While past performance and numbers are not indicative of future performances/gain/losses,
Unfortunately we seem to be a bit of a seasonal stock at times - often riding up (including through Covid) before before the usual "profit taking" and "shorting".
the good news is that at every cycle we would consolidate and create a new base that is almost always higher than the previous base.
2 steps ahead, half-a-step back, but the sum is still positive
So hang in there - we did come down on report day and days since, despite a cracker report - but see it as a consolidation and accumulation phase.
(please feel free to correct me if any of the data above is incorrect or misused)cheers,
devitto
(20min delay)
