IOOF ifl strategic entry point, page-28

"Examples of shorts on Syrah (continuous need for capital) and Quintis which was exposed by short sellers. There are numerous other examples. In the case of Quintis, it appeared cheap but I sold out as the shorts were increasing."

Yeah, but you didn't need short-sellers to tell you that SYR needed capital and QIN had obvious accounting issues that some first principles scrutiny of the company's accounts would have revealed, so I'm not sure on what basis you may have thought it was cheap.

I can show you umpteen contra-examples where short-sellers get it wrong.

Just like long-only institutional investors, shorters put their pants on one leg at a time. It's a bit bemusing how much deference is given to short-sellers by retail investors, as if short-sellers have some sort of magical elixir which gives them mystical powers and a monopoly of getting all their calls right.

As such, I am a big fan of the role short-sellers play in the stock market. Because of the mismatch in their investment time frames and my own (me being far more interested in investing for the longer term), there have been many occasions when short-selling activity has delivered stock to me at much lower prices than I would otherwise would have had to pay.

Of course, often I get it wrong, too... just like every other market participant (retail, insto, long fund, shorter, trader etc). Which is why I pay no attention to what others are doing because, who knows, that might be one of the investments they get wrong?