Copy and paste because short sellers will take it down When trying to understand what is happening to this stock and why it is trading at extremely low valuations when compared to cash flows and revenues during the last decade or so, I can't help it but think of the short sellers as subjecting the shareholders to a long siege to get them to capitulate. If you connect the dots below, the picture will start making more sense :
What the fundamentals say :
Free cash flow generated by Corus since 2011 (amounts are in millions and reflect the fiscal year):
2011: 134.861
2012: 155.147
2013: 154.711
2014: 175.276
2015: 201.213
2016: 188.165
2017: 292.660
2018:349.007
2019: 309.970
2020: 296.247
2021:251.947
2022: 239.600
The annual revenue (in millions) generated by Corus since 2010:
2010: 767.53
2011: 825.21
2012: 842.28
2013: 751.54
2014: 833.02
2015: 815.32
2016: 1171.3
2017: 1679.01
2018: 1647.44
2019: 1687.5
2020: 1511.24
2021: 1543.48
2022: 1598.586
2023: 1,511.240
So in 2022 revenues increased over fiscal 2021 not what the short sellers are peddling.
Short sellers prey on the emotionally weak and uninformed and I hope that some numbers will help put the facts at the forefront of the discussions instead of endless fear mongering from the short sellers. Now that you know the facts make an informed and rational decision not an emotional one.
Since 2018 Corus paid over 1.1 BILLION dollars in dividends and debt repayments.. Corus acquired Shaw Media for $2.65 billion back in 2016. The debt is now down to $1.2 billion and with the recent share buybacks there are less shares floating around. When the doom and gloom cycle ends Corus will have three levers in its favour: less debt/less interest payments, less shares available as they continue their buybacks which will translate into more cash flow especially when the general sentiment improves. Within less than 5 years the company will be almost debt free and potentially with 50% less shares floating around. Just Imagine the possibilities and I am not even talking about their partnership with Pluto TV and the expansion of their content offerings and international distribution and merchandising. Corus is not about just radio and TV, they own the best software to develop kids content, multiple production and marketing companies as well as studios.
A retail investor who is new to investment might be wondering how is it that the stock is trading way out of whack given the fundamentals, the dividends, the recent sale of Toon Boom for $142 Million.. so it is not unusual to try to understand and dig deeper for real answers.
my search for the truth led me to these insights that will help my fellow Canadians connect the dots.
If you keep watching the order book daily on stockwatch you will see first hand how some can manipulate the stock price one share at a time and ”own the stock” as they say by keeping it in a tight range whenever and as desired. Short sellers can shave millions of dollars off of the market capitalization of the whole company by selling as low as one single share for 1 cent off the last price. Yes you heard that right shaving 1 cent by selling 1 share at a discount allows you to magically change the valuation of the whole company by 2 million dollars for every cent. Talk about high impact manipulation.
| Time ET | Ex | Price | Change | Volume | Buyer | Seller | Markers |
| 15:35:45 | M | 1.11 | -0.04 | 1 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | |
| 15:34:47 | M | 1.105 | -0.045 | 200 | 7 TD Sec | 1 Anonymous | |
| 15:34:47 | D | 1.105 | -0.045 | 100 | 7 TD Sec | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 15:33:21 | M | 1.11 | -0.04 | 1 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | |
| 15:32:39 | T | 1.10 | -0.05 | 100 | 53 Morgan Stanley | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 15:31:09 | T | 1.10 | -0.05 | 100 | 53 Morgan Stanley | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 15:30:53 | T | 1.10 | -0.05 | 100 | 53 Morgan Stanley | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 15:30:39 | P | 1.11 | -0.04 | 100 | 85 Scotia | 7 TD Sec | K |
| 15:30:39 | X | 1.11 | -0.04 | 300 | 1 Anonymous | 79 CIBC | K |
| 15:30:39 | X | 1.11 | -0.04 | 100 | 1 Anonymous | 13 Instinet | K |
| Time ET | Ex | Price | Change | Volume | Buyer | Seller | Markers |
| 11:19:15 | O | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 2 RBC | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 11:18:51 | O | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 2 RBC | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 11:18:06 | O | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 2 RBC | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 11:17:01 | O | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 2 RBC | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 11:17:01 | T | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 7 TD Sec | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 11:16:30 | T | 1.13 | -0.06 | 700 | 7 TD Sec | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 11:16:30 | T | 1.13 | -0.06 | 7 | 7 TD Sec | 53 Morgan Stanley | |
| 11:16:06 | T | 1.13 | -0.06 | 100 | 7 TD Sec | 53 Morgan Stanley | K |
| 11:16:04 | M | 1.14 | -0.05 | 6 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | |
| 11:15:32 | M | 1.14 | -0.05 | 5 | 14 Virtu ITG | 14 Virtu ITG | |
Short sellers trying to trigger stop loss orders.
| Time ET | Ex | Price | Change | Volume | Buyer | Seller | Markers |
| 09:40:36 | D | 1.255 | -0.015 | 1,500 | 39 Merrill Lynch | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 1 | 14 Virtu ITG | 14 Virtu ITG | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 2 | 14 Virtu ITG | 14 Virtu ITG | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 85 | 14 Virtu ITG | 14 Virtu ITG | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 2 | 14 Virtu ITG | 14 Virtu ITG | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 7 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 3 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | E |
| 09:40:35 | D | 1.26 | -0.01 | 1 | 80 National Bank | 80 National Bank | E |
| 09:40:35 | X | 1.26 | -0.01 | 2,000 | 79 CIBC | 1 Anonymous | K |
| 09:36:41 | U | 1.26 | -0.01 | 100 | 2 RBC | 2 RBC | K |
I was intrigued why would someone pay $10 or so in trading commissions for 1 share that is worth a little more than a buck?
It is because the game they are playing against the shareholders goes deeper. Welcome to the rabbit hole.
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99% of Canadians do not know this and that is why some rogue American funds are abusing Canadians. This stock is traded in eleven different exchanges and short sellers are abusing the situation to muddy the waters and hide behind all the exchanges and between borders.
The stock is traded in ELEVEN different exchanges :
TSX_OMEGA_PURE_Chi-X_CX2_CXD_TriAct_Lynx & over the counter in the US as CJREF
There are about 8 million shares sold short on the TSX, about 2 million shares in the US and at least 10 million shares in all the other 9 exchanges combined. When you consider that most of the short selling is done through options and other derivatives (futures, contracts for difference..) 20 million is a conservative estimate given that short sellers try to fly under the radar and some brokers might not mark the trades correctly. Some studies have said that up to 80% of all trades are just wash trades meant to mislead and deceive shareholders into making a bad move. Short sellers are not your friends. They want your money.
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Watch out for the stop loss hunting trap:
You will avoid the shake out trap if you understand the mechanics behind short selling. Hedge funds walk away with billions every year from hard working Canadians trying to prepare for their retirement. They place orders as little as 1 share at decreasing prices until the price drops significantly enough to trigger stop loss orders that some unsuspecting retail investors automatically place to protect their downside. Example: I place 15 sell orders at strategic times (when liquidity is very low, at the beginning or end of the trading session)
1- sell 50 shares at 1.77
2- sell 50 shares at 1.75
3- sell 50 shares at 1.74
4- sell 50 shares at 1.72
5- sell 50 shares at 1.71
6-sell 50 shares at 1.80
7-sell 10 shares at 1.68
8-sell 50 shares at 1.67
9-sell 50 shares at 1.65
10-sell 50 shares at 1.62
11-sell 50 shares at 1.61
12-sell 1 share at 1.60
13-sell 5 shares at 1.66
14-sell 50 shares at 1.65
15-sell 12 shares at 1.60
By sacrificing a few shares at a discount hedge funds can trigger the sale of thousands if not millions of dormant shares owned by naive retail investors who placed stop loss orders on them and that brokers and short sellers are happy to scoop up to cover their shorts and hoard them for when the stock starts rising up again.
Short sellers use derivatves like put options and futures to manipulate the underlying stock all under the radar.
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Imagine that I assume that there are enough shareholders that will be easily shaken out if the price is low enough for an extended period.
Let us call my hand a “strong invisible hand ” and those I am planning to push out weak hands.
Let us assume this one strong invisible hand will take on 20,000 weak hands(weak because of lack of resources, information, experience...). As a strong hand my favourite game is shorting stocks both directly (2 to 5%) and indirectly using put options 95 to 98%) and I have been been playing it for decades squeezing and crushing the weak hands. The game goes like this:
- I dump a large order of 50 million shares for $6 a share
- A few months later I sell short another 30 million shares for $5 a share
- A few months later I sell short 10,000,000 shares for $4 a share
- A few months later I sell short 5,000,000 shares for $3 a share
- A few months later I sell short 3,000,000 shares for $2 a share
- A few months later I sell short 2,000,000 shares for $1 a share
- At the end of this special operation (bear raid) spanning many years my strong hand would have sold short 100 million shares for $513, 000,000 ($5.13 per share on average) bought by some 20,000 retail investors who are now faced with two options :
1- Surrender to my shakeout and sell for $1 and realize their paper loss.
2- Realize I am a financial bully fishing for liquidity and hold the line against my wish until I get squeezed for thinking I could squeeze 20,000 hands.
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By controlling supply and demand, short sellers might be able to force the stock within a desired price range while they cover.
Increasing supply:
1- by using short ladder down, stop loss hunting, wash/jitney trade… and
2- by scaring existing shareholders to push them to sell.
3- by hiring paid bashers and flooding the supply side with shares sold short
Decreasing demand:
by scaring potential buyers and dissuading them from buying the stock to crush demand (repeated posts telling people the price will keep going down and giving mental references like 99, 50 cents,zero…)
The combined effect of this engineered pricing through increased supply and decreased demand causes a self-fulfilling prophecy of depressed pricing The economic uncertainty surrounding recession fears helps the short sellers create an atmosphere of volatility and urgency that they use to their advantage by enticing people to sell asap hoping they can force existing shareholders to capitulate and dissuading potential buyers from getting involved.
For this scheme to work short sellers must convince as many as possible to surrender without putting up a fight confusing correlation and causation while pushing different cards to convince and channel different crowds to give up their shares.
Let’s get real a moment why would so many people invest so much ATM(Attention, Time and Money) to convince you to sell while hypocritically claiming they only do it to help you out? Because they see you as their cash ATM.
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Siege of Candia
Short sellers will likely keep the pressure on the stock at low dripping rates (if we ignore the fake and misleading volume in the form of jitney and wash trades). They will use short ladder downs and other tactics to implement their stratagem.
All short attacks by short sellers aim to break the will to fight by applying steady pressure on the stock to entice the longs to lose hope and surrender just like the old siege stratagem. If someone is out of food supplies, can’t handle the psychological pressure or loses faith in his capacity to resist and win by lack of will he finds himself with no other option but to surrender and subject himself to the will of those who launched the siege. A siege can last for years* to make sure that the most resilient and patient are squeezed out. Emotional control and a long term investment horizon are major insulators against such hostile short attacks. Capitulation or victory, your choice. Longs are at war with the short sellers, losing a few battles does not mean losing the war.
*The siege of Candia (now Heraklion, Crete) was a military conflict in which Ottoman forces besieged the Venetian-ruled capital city of the Kingdom of Candia. Lasting from 1648 to 1669, or a total of 21 years, it is the second-longest siege in history after the siege of Ceuta (27 years). It ended with an Ottoman victory, but the effort and cost of the siege contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, especially after the Great Turkish War.
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What Is a short ladder attack?
It is a form of market manipulation where an organized group of short-sellers (people who have bet a stock will go down) sell small numbers of shares to each other at successively lower prices to “paint the tape”—meaning to create a series of reported prices trending down that will scare other investors into selling—thus helping their short bet to win.
What Is a short attack?
A short attack is a carefully planned and coordinated attack by a group of short sellers that involves taking a large short position in a company then attempting to drive the share price down by the release of biased negative information. This information can be released in a variety of ways including via a discussion paper, in the media, via “independent” analysts’ reports or on message boards and blogs. Often, these tactics are employed in combination for maximum effect.
What Is a Shakeout?
A shakeout is a situation in which many investors exit their positions in a stock or market segment at the same time, often at a loss. A shakeout is usually caused by short sellers spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. Shakeouts can be quite variable in duration, but they are usually sharp in terms of the amount lost from recent highs.
A shakeout can also refer to stronger companies in an industry using their capital reserves to acquire or eliminate weaker competitors that have overextended themselves.
What is stop hunting?
Stop hunting is a strategy that attempts to force some market participants out of their positions by driving the price of an asset to a level where many individuals have chosen to set stop-loss orders. The triggering of many stop losses at once typically creates high volatility and can present a unique opportunity for investors who seek to trade in this environment.
The volatility creates opportunities for traders to open a long position at a discount or pile onto a short position
What Is wash trading?
Wash trading is a process whereby a trader buys and sells a security for the express purpose of feeding misleading information to the market. In some situations, wash trades are executed by a trader and a broker who are colluding with each other, and other times wash trades are executed by investors acting as both the buyer and the seller of the security.
Wash trading misleads investors into believing that trading volumes are higher than they actually are.
What Is a Jitney?
The term is used to refer to a type of market manipulation in which brokers trade securities back and forth with one-another in order to earn commissions and artificially produce the appearance of high trading volume.
In this case it defines some brokers that collude with one-another to exploit their clients and other market participants through various schemes.
What Is market capitulation?
Let us define what a market capitulation is to understand how short sellers are trying to force some to sell in panic so that they can cover their short positions.
The posts on this board are mostly from short sellers trying to plant the seeds of fear, uncertainty and doubt.
When prices in a market fall, the first instinct of many investors is to hang on and wait for values to recover. But if a slide goes on long enough, fear of deeper losses can outweigh such hopes. When enough investors reach that breaking point and sell, the result is called market capitulation.
What Is a bear raid?
A bear raid is an illegal practice of colluding to push a stock's price lower through concerted short selling, while spreading negative rumors about the shorted company. A bear raid is sometimes undertaken by unscrupulous short sellers who want to make a quick buck from their short positions, leveraging social media platforms and online message boards.
What Is painting the tape?
a form of market manipulation whereby market players attempt to influence the price of a security at the expense of investors by buying and selling it among themselves to create the appearance of substantial trading activity .
The goal of painting the tape is to create the illusion of an increased selling pressure in a stock to trick investors into selling shares, which would drive the price lower.
What Is marking the open/close ?
a market manipulation practice that involves making multiple trades minutes before the open or at the closing of the market in order to manipulate the price of the stock. This type of manipulation is also referred to as « stuffing » or « owning » the stock used by short sellers to establish an artificial price that will push investors to panic and sell by stirring their fear emotions.
What Is spoofing ?
a form of market manipulation in which a trader places one or more highly-visible orders but has no intention of keeping them (the orders are not considered bona fide). While the trader’s spoof order is still active (or soon after it is canceled), a second order is placed of the opposite type.
For example, a short seller places a large sell order, only to cancel it and place a buy order. The sell order drives the price of the stock down, while the buy order takes advantage of the lower price. The spoof sell order allowed the trader to execute the buy trade at a better price than if the spoof sell order had not been placed.
What Is psychological warfare?
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or psychological operations (PsyOp) involves the planned use of propaganda and other psychological operations to influence a target audience’s belief system, opinions, emotions, motives, reasoning, attitudes, and behaviour. Fear mongering for example is used to induce behaviours favourable to the predator at the expense of the prey.
Short sellers are always lurking around the corner. They exploit opportune times like low volume days and key dates like earnings releases to place sell orders of as low as 1 share per order at lower and lower asks. This short ladder down technique aims to trigger stop loss orders and scare others out of their positions. This coordinated shakeout is very profitable as many retail investors are unaware of it.
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Fishing for liquidity
Imagine being a farmer looking for water. You start digging a well. 10 meters deep no water, 20 meters deeper still no luck so you keep digging deeper and deeper hoping to find enough water to justify the investment and time spent digging. Now imagine a bunch of short sellers who sold millions of shares short and are digging/fishing for stop loss orders or people who will be forced to sell at a certain price (those who bought on margin and can't honour repeated margin calls for more cash as the price keeps going down…) that will allow them to cover their shorts. Short sellers will do anything to push, force or convince you to sell because they are sitting on millions of shares that they must buy to cover their short positions.
Imagine that I assume that there are enough shareholders that will be shaken out if the price is low enough.
Why Elon Musk hates short sellers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0YaJ9lRyC8
Jim Cramer explaining the basics of stock market manipulation:
https://youtu.be/8DJlogbrDcA
What is stop hunting?
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/stophunting.asp
The stock market is rigged :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX9djYus9tY
The SEC looking closely at dark pools:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanponciano/2021/08/04/sec-looking-closely-at-dark-pools-heres-what-they-are-and-why-reddit-traders-are-rallying/?sh=4b63b0c22e42
Don’t be the sucker they think you are. To take your money is a fun and satisfying game to these guys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsXxyn08DbU
Bear raid stock manipulation: how and when it works, and who benefits
https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/knowledge-at-wharton-podcast/bear-raid-stock-manipulation-how-and-when-it-works-and-who-benefits/
Short and Distort: Bear Market Stock Manipulation:
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/030102.asp
Market manipulation is real
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johntobey/2021/02/01/stock-market-manipulation/?sh=2e810dde7eb2
How The Big Players Manipulate The Stock Market:
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2918951-g-hudson/1026551-how-the-big-players-manipulate-the-stock-market
Anatomy Of A Short Attack:
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/11442671-gerald-klein/3096735-anatomy-of-a-short-attack
Naked Short Selling: The Truth Is Much Worse Than You Have Been Told:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Naked-Short-Selling-The-Truth-Is-Much-Worse-Than-You-Have-Been-Told.html
Scotiabank Fined $127 Million for Price Manipulation, False Statements
https://www.wsj.com/articles/scotiabank-fined-127-million-for-price-manipulation-false-statements-11597877100
Citigroup Fined $45 Million For ‘Dishonest’ Decade
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/securities-law/citigroup-fined-45-million-over-regulatory-breaches-in-h-k
JPMorgan Agrees To Pay $920 Million in Connection with Schemes to Defraud U.S. Treasuries Markets
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jpmorgan-chase-co-agrees-pay-920-million-connection-schemes-defraud-precious-metals-and-us
When market manipulators are the stars of Comedy Central you have to laugh about it.
To watch the video you need to be in the US or use a VPN connection. A real treasure for my fellow Canadians to watch. The interview between Jim Cramer and Jon Stewart comes in three parts where Jon is roasting Jim Cramer for this leaked video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DJlogbrDcA )
Enjoy this powerful and hidden knowledge. Courtesy of the Corus entertainment gang.
https://www.cc.com/video/fttmoj/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-exclusive-jim-cramer-extended-interview-pt-1
https://www.cc.com/video/rfag2r/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-exclusive-jim-cramer-extended-interview-pt-2
https://www.cc.com/video/gliow5/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-jim-cramer-pt-3