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High Short Interest Stocks

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Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#151
post #10

I’m surprised this sort of attack has never be carried out before. Is it just because no one ever thought there’d be a crazy army of retail investors that could be so coordinated and so irrational and large enough to matter?

Finance bro martin shrkeli pulled off a pretty epic short squeeze on KBIO

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#152
post #138

Fair warning. Buying stocks with high short interest is, over the long run, a terrible investment strategy. Mountains of academic research has consistently found the most heavily shorted stocks to significantly underperform the market[1] (to the order of 10% per year). Heavily shorted stocks tend to be the companies with the most negative cash flow shocks[2], low quality earnings statements[3], negative earnings revi…

[deleted]

Well, your dad decided to side with one or more large, faceless hedge fund managers known for burning down several companies to the ground. He bet against the retailers and be bet against GameStop company. There will always be losers and winners but at least you should own your position/side. I guess loosing on the wrong side of the fence feels even worse.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#153
post #138

Fair warning. Buying stocks with high short interest is, over the long run, a terrible investment strategy. Mountains of academic research has consistently found the most heavily shorted stocks to significantly underperform the market[1] (to the order of 10% per year). Heavily shorted stocks tend to be the companies with the most negative cash flow shocks[2], low quality earnings statements[3], negative earnings revi…

[deleted]

Long time investor doesn't mean good trader, and shorting is trading.

Only fools stay short for a long time. Fees, theta, and margin interest will eat you alive.

Plus there's the near infinite downside if you're wrong.

Fantastic thread on shorting:

https://twitter.com/HedgeDirty/status/1254767346784313344

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#154
post #130
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edit: removed mostly wrong info, but here's an article on some stuff that goes on with voting rights and shorts that could potentially be used to vote for a capital raise and break the short squeeze by issuing new shares: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB116978080268188623 )

> ... you generate a new fictional long position from the loaned shares which gets additional voting rights without any conservation law. That’s not how it works. Votes don’t magically appear. The lender gives their voting rights along with the stock to the short seller. The short seller gives it to whoever purchased the shares from them. So only the final purchaser gets to vote, the original lender lost their rights…

I believe this is actually an easy way that a true short squeeze can actually happen.

A bunch of shares are shorted, and the company announces a vote on something, which causes people to recall shares that they've loaned out (because they want the voting rights).

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#155
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dark pool is just a private securities market. They don’t have to disclose much since the general public can’t participate but they can trade all sorts of exotic instruments without a lot of the “public focused” regulations.

what is an "exotic instrument"?

e.g. A custom tailored interest-rate swap[1] to hedge very specific circumstances between two parties. Or if you like cool names, maybe a gigantic Bermudan swaption[2]. Or maybe two traders want to take opposite ends of bizarre 10 leg option with unlisted strike prices...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap#Extended_de...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaption

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#156

Fair warning. Buying stocks with high short interest is, over the long run, a terrible investment strategy. Mountains of academic research has consistently found the most heavily shorted stocks to significantly underperform the market[1] (to the order of 10% per year). Heavily shorted stocks tend to be the companies with the most negative cash flow shocks[2], low quality earnings statements[3], negative earnings revi…

Works until it doesn't. Exhibit TSLA.

Many stocks grow into it over time: AMZN

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not also possible that the shorting itself influences the direction of the stock/performance of the company? I'm not sure you can make a statement like you're making. There, to me, is not a direct cause/effect relationship here.

How would short selling cause a company's next quarterly earnings to be disappointing?

I sometimes wonder how much the share price affects management's opinion of its own performance. If valuation is viewed as a report card of sorts, then management is likely to seek financing and damage control when shares are cheap. Doubt of that nature could have a negative effect on their ability to perform. Not to mention that share price likely plays a role in their personal wealth.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#159

Fair warning. Buying stocks with high short interest is, over the long run, a terrible investment strategy. Mountains of academic research has consistently found the most heavily shorted stocks to significantly underperform the market[1] (to the order of 10% per year). Heavily shorted stocks tend to be the companies with the most negative cash flow shocks[2], low quality earnings statements[3], negative earnings revi…

It turns out an online community can stay irrational longer than a hedge can solvent.

These situations tend to blow Up both sides, more or less.

A few lucky Redditors will get out with profits. Most of the late entries are going to take steep losses. Those losing Redditors will be paying the winning Redditors.

The narrative that this is hedge funds losing to Redditors isn’t fully accurate.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that the problem? Shorts have finite payoff for infinite risk. If you buy into shorts when the interest is above 100%, you _immediately_ open the door for this type of counter position to become rational. Is it really a problem that a bunch of people on a message board collectively decided to act on a rational position?

The thought of GameStop stock going up to infinity (and never coming down) doesn't seem rational.

It doesn't need to go to infinity. GameStop just needs to get to parity with totality of the collective assets of every short seller. Then to make good on their debt, those entities will be fully liquidated.

They took on unbounded risk and have no leverage if all of the stockholders refuse to sell for anything less.

The stock is less a company than a contract that can be purchased that says the other party has to pay you any price you set (assuming the stockholders are able to hold until the shorts must close their position).

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