the market is clean...what?, page-17

"Show me some institutional sub holder announcements (unloading MSB stock) "

You are aware of course, that many institutional investors own stakes in publicly-listed companies where those stakes are below 5%, which is the level only above which it is a requirement to issue announcements detailing changes in shareholding, either up or down?

Which is why the overwhelming majority of investment institutions carefully manage their shareholdings below the 5% threshold level. So that in the event they might want to sell, that they don't signal that to the rest of the market, which would compromise their position and ability to execute optimally.

But wait, there's more: it is even possible to own more than 5% of a listed company and to legally avoid having to lodge a substantial shareholder notice. You could - and institutional investors do this all the time - buy up to 4.99% of the company's issued share capital on market and then enter into a swap arrangement with one or more prime brokers at investment banks, who will buy however much more than 4.99% you want to own, and then these prime brokers will hold it for you "on swap" (in essence, this is a derivative arrangement that does not give you immediate beneficial ownership of the "above 5%" stock, but gives you the option to bring it onto your own books when the circumstances suit).

And finally, you talk about the institutional shareholders who have declared their substantial shareholdings, and you state boldly that they have not sold a single share. You are aware, hopefully, that it is synthetically possible to reduce your effective holding in a company without selling a single share, for example by buying at-the-money PUT options all the way down. In this case, the counter-party would sometimes - but no always - short sell the shares in the company in order to hedge its exposure to the downside. But the net effect of this seemingly complex transaction is that the substantial shareholder would have been able to technically reduce its holding - via this derivative arrangement - and the broader market would have no idea about it. And this is just one very basic strategy that is used to sell without anyone knowing. Believe me, there are many more.

So to say that no major shareholders have sold any shares, because there have been no notices issued to that end, cannot be said to be unequivocally true.

So you can see, there is so much going behind he scenes - all of it perfectly legal and perfectly sensible and reasonable from a risk management points of view - that us mere mortals have no idea about.
Certainly, your Iress or your Bloomberg screen won't enlighten you.


Blaming the imaginary manipulators, I'm afraid, is not the way the institutional investing world works.

Twenty five years in the industry (and due to retire on 1 July 2014) and I have never been witness to anyone wholesale, systemic, large-scale market manipulation of the sort you are alleging.

Sorry