Quote: Why should someone short Biota ?A company that is without...

Quote: Why should someone short Biota ?
A company that is without a doubt massively undervalued and
that has the best perspectives (Relenza, Lani, Global Pandemic) for a rising shareprice ?
Any why in such a great amount ?
And why again and again ? If this were small shareholders they would usually give in if it didnt work, cos it costs a lot of money...

Eric, I agree with you about BTA being undervalued. However short selling just like put or call options could all be used in various scenarios of investment strategies.

Let me give you a fictitious example. An investor Pita Crook has 1 million BTA shares in his portfolio and Mr Crook wants to sell 300K of his shares. Instead of selling it outright at $2.95 Mr Crook short-sell 300K of shares at $2.95 with the delivery date 2 weeks from today locking in his capital gains. Between now and the delivery date, each time the share price dips below $2.95, Mr Crook will buy shares to cover his short-sell. Say in the next 2 weeks, Mr Crook manage to buy on market 300K shares at a weighted average price of $2.80; Mr Crook would have made 300,000 x ($2.95 - $2.80) – expenses and still have his 1 million shares intact.
Obviously if the sp never dip below $2.95 in the next 2 weeks, Mr Crook has to deliver 300,000 shares from his portfolio. This is no different from Mr Crook selling the 300,000 shares today at $2.95 (except for the additional short selling expenses).
There are other possible scenarios and I do not want to explain as my purpose is to point out that short selling, option and the likes can be used to make money.

Perhaps you are kind enough to explain how short-selling can be used as a strategy to take-over BTA cheaper than making an out right take-over offer now.

But imho its A FACT that the 190 million units are a realistic figure that will be SOLD !
Have you use the wrong choice of word. “A FACT” is something that has happened. You are predicting that is “will be”. I cannot see anywhere in the article you cited that says the 190 million doses has been sold. In FACT, a proportion of the planned 190 million are Rotacaps/Rotahalers which has temporary approval by Swedish regulators. In FACT Peter Cook talked down the news stating Quote additional regulatory approvals will be required”

Quote: ”
This company is still undervalued massively and imho most analysts are talking the shareprice down by predicting that only a part of the 190 million courses of Relenza will
be sold next year, which is absurd.”
I agree with you the company is massively undervalued. I also agree with your opinion that GSK could easily produce 190million normal Relenza and sell all of them as indicated by ROCHE producing 400 million Tamiflu. However part of the 190 million are Rotacaps/Rotahalers. And analysts are predicting smaller sales because Peter Cook is talking the share price down. The useless CEO is the single biggest cause why the market thinks the demand for Relenza is less than 190 million p.a.

It is time BTA shareholders pull their heads out of the sand and email BTA to ask why Peter Cook is talking down the share price!