Member Info for Mortality

We just need the market to believe a stable 3% margin and a flat top-line is possible. That would probably lead to £10 share price itself.

Yep. c. 6m shares traded weekly and roughly 7m shares shorted. Even if they were 100% of the shares traded they would need to take an entire week to close.

Well we always said it would move up quickly... and it is.

Feels like we are moving up to a new range c. £5. Good trading update and should settle c. £6-£7.

Nah. I used to work in one of these instititions (long only though). Trust me... when a trade goes against you its unpleasant. The shorts will be fretting.

If anything investing your own money is less emotional. You only answer to yourself. When you invest others money you have a boss to answer to, clients with questions, performance track records to worry about etc.

I don't know... look at the worry on this board when the shares drop 7%. Everyone starts speculating. Shorts will be feeling it a bit too.

The top 3 shareholders own c. 60% of the shares. If we assume another 15% are closely held by institutions. That leaves 25%... the shorts must be minimum 7% (the ones over 0.5% are 5%). So the shorts have to find c. 1/4 of the free float to close. fck em.

Shorts must be panicking a little bit. hahaha. good.

Sorry, buying.

I think he has been keeping a lid on the price whilst buying.

The sceptic in me thinks that if Mike Ashley hasn't finished selling... the share price will mysteriously work its way back to £4.

Maybe finally Mike Ashley has found every willing seller.

Not getting excited till at least £5. Been here before.

That said... trading statement coming soon. That will be more interesting.

On the plus side... having all these supportive shareholders mean the risk of default or deeply discounted rescue right issues is lower. If the business needed more capital, it could be done close to the current share price.

MA isn't going to bid.

For a takeover to work you need to get roughly 75-90% support. That is probably why AP wants to keep above 25%, and MA wants to get above 25%. That way they can both block each other from bidding.

In this respect a bid would never even be made public. The board would go to the other major shareholder and ask them if they accept. If they don't the bid won't even go hostile / public.

Haha I know. It goes up quickly... it goes down quickly too. Every time we clear £4 I think its behind us... been wrong a few times now.

I can't buy anymore, its already my largest position by a long way.

Usual games being played with the share price. Shares pushed down, and then hoovered up. I think a 1/3 of the free float has been bought up by MA, minimum. Shares still at £4. What a joke.

No they are not privvy. If they have seen the results it would be illegal to trade on them. However the board have no reason to show them the results.

That said Mike Ashley is no fool. His channel partners and contacts would have a reasonable steer on whats going on. I don't think he thinks short term though. His view is he wants as much as he can at 4 pound. Short term trading is isn't important.

I think Shadowfall has been short since April. It is only more recently have they breached the 0.5% threshold. This could be anything... they could have had a large inflow to their funds etc.

https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2023/04/asos-hit-by-shortseller-shadowfall/

I work from home... so I see a lot of intraday chart moves :). I can't help but notice an inverse correlation of Asos with the Nasdaq.

Today was another example. Normally I wouldn't mention it because its pretty spurious and not exactly fundamental, but its starting to get really obvious.

Asos struggles all day. Then US market starts to open, and Nasdaq really starts to weaken, and Asos starts to rally.

I am wondering if there aren't a large number of market neutral hedge funds out there, which are long US tech stocks, and short EU tech stocks. They play this arbitrage. When they start closing out their US tech longs, they close out their Europe shorts as well.

Certainly over a very long period Asos looks the inverse of the Nasdaq :)