Its Over, page-22356

...I've been saying that local investors have been flocking into the big banks, notably CBA just because they see need to buy Quality and there's few to choose from in ASX leading to overconcentration (CBA is our NVIDIA in US) and probably entering at just about the wrong time (a crisis is not a too distant future ahead).

...HC forum market participants should not be directing their anger towards shorters but instead recognising that
1) the shorting activity is led by instos; instos make money however which way, if long is not conducive, they short.
2) there is always a strong ground why they're shorting a particular stock- it is usually high valuation relative to fundamental outlook, seeing weakness ahead. Instead, take that cue and position accordingly
3) shorts are just the opposite of long: while everyone complains that shorters depress the stock price, no one is complaining that overly exuberant market participants may have pushed their stocks far too high in an unsustainable manner to have inflicted big losses for new market participants entering the stock at nose bleed valuations on the back of such exuberance. Both are equally forms of market 'manipulation' if one wishes to use that word. But in reality, if that's what within the rules of the game, you have entered the game knowing that to be the case and can't complain of any foul. If you have lost money in the process, cry foul but you wouldn't if you made big money. That's the way it is with people.  But as I said before, complaining is useless, do something instead, like perhaps Sell.
4) If instos have to resort to Shorting to make money, what does that tell you about stock prospects? Does that give us any confidence if the big boys make more money selling short stocks rather than Buy and Hold?

..is it a coincidence that this news comes out on the day of the RBA rate decision today? Go figure.
Regal Funds’ King shorts CBA

Bloomberg

Veteran hedge fund manager Philip King has taken a short position in shares of Commonwealth Bank of Australia, citing one of the world’s most expensive valuations.

With a forward price-earnings multiple of 22 times, CBA is the priciest bank on the MSCI World Bank Index and compares with 11.7 at JPMorgan Chase & Co. King, the chief investment officer at Regal Funds Management, said he expects CBA’s earnings-per-share to decline in coming years.

“Australian banks are now getting attacked from all angles by competition,” King said in an interview in Sydney. “Buy now, pay later operators are taking share in consumer lending, non-bank lenders are taking share in business lending and private credit are making inroads across the entire loan book,” he said.

In addition, stringent capital requirements are making the country’s lenders “increasingly uncompetitive”, he said.

Regal has grown from a four-person team in 2004 to around 145 people and manages about $12 billion from offices in Sydney, Singapore and New York across the Regal Partners group. It’s expanded from a mainly long-short equities fund into an investment manager across private markets and alternatives.

The Regal Long Short Australian Equity Fund has returned 25 per cent over the past year, beating around 80 per cent of its peers, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

A CBA spokesperson declined to comment.

Bank stocks around the world have benefited from higher interest rates and that’s helped drive a gauge of Australian financial shares to a record high this month. CBA returned about 37 per cent over the past year, compared with 31 per cent on the MSCI world index of banks.