Reading your post, I’ve just had a horrible thought. Why would...

Reading your post, I’ve just had a horrible thought. Why would anyone take huge short positions that are equivalent to a week or even 2 weeks worth of ordinary trade turnover? They can’t be total novice fools, or they wouldn’t have the credit and capacity to borrow the stock.

So could it be that the numbers are grossly misreported? Or could they have inside knowledge that is leading them to bet on an apocalypse and the ability to buy all they want for a lower price? If they knew there was a catalyst to drive the market lower, they could confidently go large short and plan on making a killing. BUT they know we have 2 decent catalysts within 6 weeks (conservatively) that could easily push it to $1.80-$2.00.

The other possibility is they have inside knowledge of something such as that AZ have decided not to proceed with AZD0466 or the FDA will not approve vivagel, or that one of our big clinical trials such as Docetaxel will fail.

One last theory (a wild one) is that they are driving the price down because they are part of an imminent takeover bid, and what they lose on a $13m position is dwarfed by being able to buy the company cheaper. I feel the sp would be easily above $1.66 now if it weren’t for this activity.

This is dark stuff, but I would like a plausible answer/theory please as to why 1 or more parties would get massively short when they can’t possibly close out? And even if it’s a number of usual suspects (rather than 1 party) who short biotechs because they know so many fail, they’d still be aware that overall the stock has been shorted to a point where they’ll be trapped trying to close out. I might even ask at the AGM whether they know why the stock has been shorted to the point the shorts can’t expect to be able close out unless there’s an apocalypse for spl?

I hope I don’t sound crazy, but I got fried on a situation with Mustang where the company knew they were taking junk to a ruby auction, but told everyone they were taking quality. Of course the sp plummeted on the poor auction result, but fell more when everyone realised we’d all been misled. If something is fishy then we should not stop until we understand what’s going on.