Why would you short Tassals *now*?, page-30

Anyone read the articles in Fairfax (The Age/Sydney Morning Herald) today, "Caught in a bear trap: How 'short and distort' attacks are costing Australian investors billions" by Adele Ferguson?

Very interesting. Adele presents fascinating data of how overseas short-selling research houses / hedge funds are basically working in a coordinated manner to drive prices down on the ASX. There is some stuff around how ASIC is a toothless tiger and isn't preventing it. But of note is that there has been over 50 cases since 2015, and 24 in the last year. Most of the information that is released egregiously alleges fraud, corruption, misconduct, dubious accounting practices, etc. And while the stocks get hammered (something like 40% in the first week!), the actual allegations often fall way short and the stock price does/can return. In the meantime though, the shorters make out with millions of dollars, while retail investors lose billions (largely by selling during the panic).

I have mentioned this on Hotcopper before in terms of Rural Funds which is used as a case study in the article, and Inghams which is also a popular short. The Bonitas situation with RFF was dramatically incorrect, and while Bonitas presumably made a large amount of money, to be honest it provided me wiht a greater opportunity to get in to RFF once the dust had settled. RFF has been a great success in 2020, rising from the ashes of Bonitas at $1.70 to now be around $2.50.

Tassals is a small ag stock. It could be heavily manipulated if there was a concerted effort, and I wouldn't be relying on ASIC, ASX or even TGR Management to be able to mitigate it in the current climate. All I can say is, I'd be interested to know what research the shorters have, but I'll be casting a very close eye over it as the breadth of experience thus far has shown most of their research lacks in evidence. More than likely I won't be rushing to sell, but if it did happen and Tassals dropped back to March levels around $3, probably a great time to accumulate and average down.