Brookfield Office Properties Inc T.BPO.PR.A

HUGE increases in Short Positions

[pierrelebel]

Shorts increased substantially in the December 16th - December 31, 2023

		Dec 31/23	Change
BPO.PR.A		33,015	26,699
BPO.PR.C		121,163	45,110
BPO.PR.I		162,134	-28,264
BPO.PR.N		65,002	36,246
BPO.PR.P		147,664	126,215
BPO.PR.R		30,047	4,467
BPO.PR.T		297,595	50,893
BPO.PR.X		454	369
BPO.PR.W		9,084	2,640
BPO.PR.Y		1,301	-1,250
BPO.PR.G		87,858	48,975
BPO.PR.E		174,171	149,425

[pierrelebel]

The short position report - just released - may explain why all BPO preferred shares dropped quickly at the opening this morning on well above average volume for the first 30 minutes of trading. Why some speculators or traders keep shorting at these low levels is not something I can understand.  Do they know something the rest of us do not?

[rodbhar]

If I thought the R was trading too cheap relative to the T, I might buy a large amount of R and short an equal amount of T. My short side would show up in this report buy not my long. So it's possible that there is a lot of that going on and the NET short position is far smaller.

[Carena]

Good morning, I agree with Pierre that the short report this morning was driving todays activity.  And I agree with Rod on the relative value trade.   Just for edification, the E series total volume over the period was 295,780 and total short trade volume was 175,000 or a staggering 59%! I am still in the camp that a 200,000 short position is still only 2% of the issue and if

[pierrelebel]

Looking specifically at the BPO.PR.T, there are 297.595 short which is about 3% of all outstanding shares. However, considering that they trade under 20,000 shares daily ( based on 50 day average) that works out to less than 5,000,000 a year! They have three weeks supply on the short side! That is huge! If someone is serious about starting a short squeeze, the shortsellers would get burn!

[Carena]

Hi again, A couple of things: (i) 95,000 shares of the N series traded today.....I can't imagine shorting a preferred share series trading at 28% of par value when there a bunch of other series trading at much higher %'s, if your thesis is BPY is going bankrupt? (ii)  And just saw a note on "PrefBlog" saying that BPO/BPY prefs getting kicked out of TXPR...so a deluge of

[pierrelebel]

National Bank was the big seller of N today. Morgan Stanley was the big seller of T today.

[Carena]

Hi again, Just bought some more N series at $7.02. So I guess the current short thesis is to short all the BPO series because these Pref ETFs are going to have to sell their BPO/BPY holdings.  Not a bad bet actually and we know the holdings are significant. The interesting aspect to this theory is who is going to be on the buy side of all these exits?   Carena

[DJ441c]

Carena   I   hope you  are  correct    I did  buy badk  2/3  of my old positions   and now down  15%  in short time   I felt the  rating cut  was priced in  in  late NOv    appears  not Interesting  that  3 of the 4 series of BPY were   actually up today any

[Carena]

Hi DJ, I am of the belief that the BPY prefs are the best proxy for BPY trading sentiment as the BPO prefs are generally much less liquid.  But the BPO prefs are buried much deeper in the structure. I am of the conviction that Brookfield knows how to fix things and they will fix BPY.  But it is going to be rocky and the Junk rating in December was a huge disappointment and has left me

[DJ441c]

Carena all  great points     yes, I see  even yesterday  BPY  behaving better  than  certain BPO issues, possibly etf disposing of them?     thanks   dj