FormerXBC Inc XEBEQ

Short trades - this explains the weakness YTD, maybe longer

[Ciao]

Thanks to Zalmonella for pointing out where one could find short data.

Someone is making quick profits by shorting XBC. I had a look at the reports YTD.

In the first 2 weeks of January 44% of trades were short sales.
In the last 2 weeks of January 42% of the trades were short sales.
For the first 2 weeks of Feb the %age of short trades was about 25%.

This explains the killer drop in the share price in January (I also noted that in the first day of trading the stock was rallying, then go hit, likely short sales). You may not see a significant increase in the short position overall as short trades can be covered at lower prices to net out the short position within the reporting period ***,. With the absence of an uptick rule, and an illiquid market you can easily manipulate the share price lower.


For those who believe that the share price is dropping solely on fears of "whatever", the above shows that the share price is being manipulated lower by short sales. This is seen when the short interest increases at a slower rate than the volume of shorts (see ***). The net short interest increased only 500K in January.  The volume of shares traded short was about 7.7M shares. So it appears there was a lot of short covering (7.2M shares)  as the share price dropped in January.  

In summary, hit the bid with a short sale, cause panic for further selling, then cover your short. Rinse and repeat. Great to profit from any rallies. This is great in an illiquid market for a hedge fund playing against the retail investor. This fails when demand comes from fund managers or large retail buyers that can support the stock. WIth the stock representing deep value and Q4 coming up it should be harder for this shorter to continue playing this game.