RE: funny business? Institutional ShortingMLY has been a target for repeated shorting, IMHO. Sprott knows it and has no solution. I have seen volume pick up whenever the price moves up, at the peak volume increases and down she goes.
This pattern emerged at 5.50 area some time ago, then the 5.0 range was the target to go short after a run up, then 4.50. Recently I saw volume pick up at just above 4.00, so I knew we would test the mid 3's area ONCE AGAIN.
I heard Eric Sprott on a webcast talking about increasing shareholder value a while back, but Sprott has done nothing. This tells me that Sprott is more a part of the problem with institutional shorting than part of the solution.
My solution would be to roll this pig up. If the creators of the vehicle cannot take the actions they are able to, e.g announce a large distribution coming, close out the warrants, whatever, then a discount to NAV of better than 30% will persist, and any time moly price increases and underlying shares ramp up in price, MLY will be shorted again, and back down to sub 30% discount to NAV.
In short, this is a scam. The same institutions that underwrote this issue are part of the shorting cabal. Sprott is complicit, even if tacitly, in this wash, rinse and repeat shorting scam.
What you are seeing right now is the price of shares being held down by small lot automated trading, which is simple to do with a thinly traded stock like this. The only time you see the odd volume spikes,it is either a new short position being put on after a rise, or a short position being closed after a fall back.
I have written about this before, so call me a conspiracy theorist if you will, but it is what it is. Moly prices are up, demand for the commodity is increasing, the underlying shares of some of the holdings have been volatile and under pressure recently with the turmoil in the markets in general, but the pattern for MLY remains the same, huge discount to NAV, with serial short raids when it recovers a bit.
This pattern has been seen with a number of Canadian mining stocks I have held over the years, so MLY is not the only one being singled out for the shorting game. Think about it, if you could easily control price and short it down $1.25 or $1.50, close the short, go long, run it back up, and wash, rinse and repeat, wouldn't you do it?
This stock reminds me of IVW,another small mining play that has had problems executing, they short it at 2 or 1.75, run it down a buck, close the short, run it up, then short it down again. Been going on for 3 years or more. Check out the chart of IVW and compare to MLY.
Rant completed, LOL
vocex1