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.

[Hesiod07]

There's a structural short, but there's also been almost daily short activity plus front running by selling inventory. The reason the price rebounds after around 3:30 is short covering, There is nothing illegal about this unless there's been phantom stock trading going on, and this can be investigated. The CFTC in the US is currently investigating illegal shorting in that market

[Ciao]

Yes. I don't have data to support naked shorts / phantom stock trading / failure to deliver on TSX. However, based on the OTC short interest and daily trading volumes, and where about 2/3 of trades were shorts (in that 2 week window I had illustrated) that is very suspect and now about 90 days to cover.

[newcoin]

The shorts are in big trouble. Let's sock it to them. Nothing more fun than frying shorts.

[DueDiligence20]

If everyone puts their shares in the DRS system, no shares to short.

[Ciao]

Manipulating a stock is illegal. Short selling isn't, but naked short selling is. Not sure what they are doing here. Don't know what you mean by a structural short. I thought that was used to describe the type of company being shorted rather than the mechanics of shorting. It look's like a valuation short and dangerous now given it is trading below BV, has low P/S trailing and

[Tan4646]

re" 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." and , I think?,  with the analysts lowering their market multiples and taking a "show me" stance  there was no impetus to move the price

[zalmonella]

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

[newcoin]

They do have a process, it's called an algorithm.