It looks to me like forced selling from an insto who is copping...

It looks to me like forced selling from an insto who is copping redemptions.

If you look at small caps across the market, but particularly concept stocks - great ideas, not earning money yet - you will see unmitigated selling.

This selling is happening regardless of the sector the stock is in. E.g. Z1P has fallen from $5.86 to $1.31 in the past 6 months, down from $3.88 in the past month and down 18% today!

Similarly , EOS is down from $10.80 to $3.53 in the past month or so.

Small cap fund managers are being butchered.

We read last week that Regal was down over 30% last month, and share price performances this month have been far worse. Julian Babarczy resigned from Regal at the end to f January after 14 years at the hedge fund and there was an ASIC investigation under way, of which which I haven't yet seen results. All of these developments combined would make Regal's underlying investors and their advisors very
Nervous. Gatekeepers often put a manager o hold just because a key staff member leaves.

And it isn't just Regal in this boat - I mention them because people had speculated that Regal had bought MSB in some of the big selldowns from Capital (maybe 25m to 27M shares) and also from Tasly (around 13m shares). If Regal, or any other small cap manager had bought all those shares, they may be forced sell if they are now facing redemptions.

If you face a large redemption, you have no choice but to sell - no matter what the price.

By my count, well over 40m shares could have been sold by a desperate seller, therefore clearing most of the loose stock that appears to have gone to one or two holders in the two big selldowns. If retail are holding on and the other traditional major holders haven't sold, then the most likely explanation for this price fall is redemptions and forced selling.

Once these sellers are cleared, the price should bounce back aggressively. It is a sad situation for them to be in - but every time there have been major market falls over a short period of time over the past 50 years, I have seen fund managers and stock brokers oblitereated and crazy forced selling of their holdings.

Could one player hold more than 5% without declaring it? It does sometimes happen - especially if some is held in offshore funds or lent out to shorters. So it could be one player (but quite possibly 2).

That might even explain the odd crossing pre trade of 8 million shares a week or so ago. The price was 3x the $A2.19 price - then reversed. It is possible someone made an error if the stock was located offshore and they were working out an ADR price and had been quoted an exchange rate of 60c (or were just rounding to 60c) - 5 shares per ADR time 0.6 gives a multiple of 3 for the share price. So that's what makes me suspicious there may have been some offshore component to this.

So, my antenna is up, and putting everything together, that's my best guess - however I don't know for sure.

We will probably see all these small caps bounce once these possible redemptions finish and the stocks all sold to raise money to pay back unit holders.

When this happens, I don't know.
In the meantime, there's no point blaming management or Board of MSB.
Even if announcements were made, the price would probably still be under pressure until the selling stops - unless there were to be massive new buying to swamp the selling (as happened when Capital exited at $1.71 last year).

Watch MSB volumes and other small cap stocks for an indication when this selling is slowing down.

GLTAH