Danny you paraphrased Keynes in your earlier post - the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
He also said that focus on market manipulation and insider trading is just a distraction.
We don't need to care if manipulators alter the shareprice except to take advantage of it. There are two functions I see in short seller actions.
The best and brightest (Chanos, alderlaneeggs, Gotham City) detect massive frauds, fads and failures then bust them hard. It's entertaining as anything and much more effective than a government paid securities watchdog. Skin in the game has that effect.
The most common is overtrading, they exacerbate panic by driving shareprices down.
I like both, the first for challenging my beliefs and saving me money. The second for driving the price of shares to fantastically low levels so I can buy more of them.
The opportunities for value investors are greater than in Graham or Keynes' day because of the wild speculation and overtrading even in today's crazy bull market and low yield world.
I don't mean to say that insider trading is O.K. I think it's a rip off and I wouldn't do it if I ever came across such info. It just doesn't offend me as it's small beer in the wider scheme.
The little guy actually has massive advantages which institutions do not. If only he could learn to take advantage.
Should I curse the market for driving SHJ down to 55c so I could buy?
I think your earlier bullish post may be actually correct and keen to see.
There haven't been any acquisitions in the last two years I agree with you there. Risk worldwide was in the IPO documents just finalised the payments in the last half.
That means I think also we are going to see cashflows which will reveal the truth about SHJ.
That could then improve their ability to capitalise on the wreckage of SGH even if it's just reducing competition in buying small firms.
In the end after early losses from speculation Keynes remained rational and outperformed the market. If anything his quote should be used to warn against buying on margin. https://www.maynardkeynes.org/keynes-the-investor.html
(20min delay)