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Amers
The percentage of shares out on short are also tiny in comparison with shares issued.
The allegations are still unresolved but the market makers will take confidence from the buyback.
Even though the amount of shares out on short were small it was enough to compel the MMs to mark the shareprice down aggressively
Quintessentials short is being bankrolled by bigger hedge funds. They are using them as a battering ram.
And the share buyback commences from today!
Aimmaster
The longer these serious allegations are left unaddressed the more other shorting funds will pile in. I’d imagine Darktrace has caught the eye of numerous shorting funds who will be weighing up a short position in the company.
Quintessential Capital Management have made some really serious accusations against Darktrace, the worst of which is one of financial accounting fraud. Any fraud of that nature is illegal and would draw the attention of financial regulators who would most likely suspend the shares from trading. All I can say is Quintessential better have some very incriminating evidence or they themselves will be in serious trouble for fabricating fake news to profit from a short position.
This can’t be passed over with a short RNS as we saw from Darktrace yesterday, the accusations have to be addressed in full and if they are false Darktrace have to open litigation against their accusers. Being accused of financial accounting fraud is the same as being accused of a serious crime.
I know shorting funds all workroom in tandem although they deny it. Every fund with a sizable short out on Darktrace are in constant communication with one another. They conspire to short companies in concert to inflict maximum damage. It’s my guess the bigger funds have used Quintessential as a battering ram.
Unless Darktrace can respond satisfactory to the allegations I can see the shareprice diving 60/70p in a day.
Monday 6th would seem like the obvious date to address these allegations but a lot can happen before then. The ball is in Darktrace’s court. To remain silent will be construed as an admission of guilt by markets.
Poker
“They basically think the revenues will slow and confidence in the product is declining”
The whole sector is slowing because of the macroeconomic climate. Its peers in the US have issued similar trading updates recently. These rogue-shorting funds have singled Darktrace out because it’s listed in the UK. Regulation wouldn’t allow it in other markets. As I’ve said many times on this board creating a false narrative that sends a stock price down while actively shorting it is criminal.
Unless you have the misfortune to be listed in the UK
I blame Darktrace for not having the foresight to list in the USA
Let this be a warning to other tech firms
You will get trashed if you list here.
Rod
Quintessential Capital Management are a boiler operation with less than ten employers.
I have it on good authority thaey are acting and financed by Shadowfall to fund their short position on Darktrace.
I dare them to issue a statement claiming otherwise
Poker
If you read my post you’ll see that I agree with you that shorting is not unethical. I short myself sometimes. The point I was making in that post was that the UK is no place to list tech shares. That’s common knowledge. Any tech company worth its salt should not list in the UK. If they do they will be trashed by hyena hedge funds.
Note - definition of hyena hedge funds are boiler room outfits that work in tandem to determine shareprice direction. I’ve posted extensively on the Darktrace board about this in the past.
Darktrace have refused to issue a statement on the precipitous falls over the past two days.
If there is a worm in the apple markets find out long before retail investors. As in the financial crisis when banks plunged despite Statements of Denial by their CEOs.
So either markets have got wind of some extremely negative news pertaining to Darktrace.
Or it’s being driven down by packs of shorting hyena hedge funds which are acting in unison.
Trading update on February 6th
Take your pick.
“Shorting is unethical,“
Of course it isn’t unethical, but as we’re seeing with Darktrace it has the capacity to be badly abused. This could never happen in the USA because there’s regulation against it.
Darktrace’s tragic mistake as a tech company was listing in the UK instead of elsewhere.
The same hyena shorting funds are targeting Wise too. Another one of the handful of tech companies that unwisely decided to list in the UK
And the government can’t understand why more tech companies won’t list in this isolated cesspit
Testing new lows
Unsustained rises
Today’s low is 207
I expect it to close below that level at market close
202?
Fleecy
“I say it the way I see it,“
Problem with that is - you’ve been saying it the way you see it for years now, which has been the polar opposite of reality. Anyone who followed your advice must be nursing eye watering losses now.
You seem to overlook the primary objective of an investment is to make money. Since the covid dip the market has risen about 2500 points and here you are with BT & Vodafone - about the only two ftse100 shares which are actually lower now when they were then. You certainly know how to avoid making a profit!
Mikey
Unfortunately i can see it getting close to 90p with ex div so ill say 91p
Did you know the dividend cover is 0.73?
Which is negative- meaning Voda are shelling out more than they’re earning.
Which is why their debt has ballooned to €45.5 billion.
I really can’t see too much value in Voda. They’re running the company like Truss & Kwasi ran the country. I see a dividend cut as inevitable- a probable rights issue - and a future shareprice of 50p
At its highest Vodafone had a market capital value of £228 billion compared with about £25 billion now.
And I can’t see anything to suggest that trend reversing.
Fleecy
“Hopefully not until the end of February 2023, by then my BT and Vodafone divi's will landed in the ISA's and reinvested.”
Are you aware Vodafone’s capital market has fallen from a high of £228 billion to today's approximate £25 billion?
Not a great performance. And if you invested in it you most likely got hammered. And yet just like a dog goes back to its vomit you continue to top up.
Vodafone are shouldering a current debt pile of €45.5 billion. Have they got the means to pay it back?
Fleecy
“I might have been gutted by the capital gain tax changes,”
That’s something you’ll never have to worry about.
Being a hopeless investor has its upsides.
bobocaca
“My trades via HL are registered as off-book.”
That’s odd - if the trades are done during market hours they should register so.
The recent spike in off-book trades should raise a red flag.
———————————-
An ‘off-book’ trade refers to the process of trading shares away from an exchange or regulated body. Off-book orders are not as reliant upon the rules of an exchange or trading system. This means that they can provide a lot more freedom and flexibility for participants to choose their own prices and outline the parameters of their own trade.
The drawback of this, is that off-book trading is often used by individuals looking to conceal their behaviour from others. The lack of official regulation can also be a cause for concern, as there is no obligation for either party to report the trade to an exchange or publicise the orders to a governing body.
Whatever are market makers playing at?
Big falls and rises should be accompanied with high volumes. That is an immutable rule of stock markets!
Although volumes were a little higher than average yesterday, it doesn’t explain why the shareprice fell over 11 percent when only 0.72 percent of the company’s shares were traded.
Marking a shareprice down over 11 percent on a volume that size is absurd. I know DT is being manipulated by packs of hyena hedge funds working in tandem, but market makers are equally complicit. They must know about the daily bear raids so why are they behaving like nodding donkeys, by wiping hundreds of millions off DT’s value when only about £16 million of shares were traded?
And all these huge after hour trades which are mostly showing as buys are another irregular occurrence. It’s suggestive of short closing after hours to minimize turbulence and maximize profit, which ought to be illegal.
I’m going to raise these issues with both DT and the FCA.
CR
“On the case of Blue Prism they might have been right , that blue prism was falling behind on product”
Not at all. Blue Prism eventuality sold for £12.75 a share up from a previous bid of £12.00..
And they weren’t the only horse in the race
Private Equity offered £12.50
You have to ask yourself - who knows best - cutting edge American tech companies or a pack of coke-snorting boiler room boys in an EC3 cellar?
The only money Shadowfall make is through criminal manipulation. Don’t know if the link below will work but it details BP’s takeover.
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3775710-ssc-blue-prism-agree-to-16b-takeover-deal?source=acquisition_campaign_google&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=18193405679&utm_term=141966202540%5Eaud-1455154866900:dsa-1485125211538%5E%5E621446742463%5E%5E%5Eg&internal_promotion=true&gclid=CjwKCAjwg5uZBhATEiwAhhRLHpp5cgz9usersYjgy8zNnFQxHwQNlQwdE5wcOrZKQJHGLQ_RNKqLwhoCyhEQAvD_BwE
Looking over some of the companies Michael Earl from Shadowfall has attacked in the past.
Blue prism - a leading robotic process automation company (RPA)
Earl voiced his concerns, chief among them was the software company’s alarmingly low research and development spending in a highly competitive and technologically advanced market, alongside soaring sales and marketing expenditure. ShadowFall’s note sent the shares down by 10 per cent on the day of the note publication.
Sound familiar?
Another tech company.
That’s exactly what he’s saying about DT now.
And he trash-talked Blue Prism after opening a short position.
BP was bought out by SS&C for $1.6 billion not long afterwards
——————
Future (the media group) another one of Earl’s targets - same s**t - opens a short position then follows it up by trash talking the company.
Future delivered market-breaking results last week - £271 million profit - shares rose 8 percent on the day.
Earl’s behavior is fraud. If he did the same in the USA he would be behind bars (they have regulation there). Taking out shorts on companies and publishing false allegations right afterwards is a criminal offense in the US - so why is it permitted in the UK. That’s market manipulation at its most blatant.
And he only preys on UK listed companies, because he knows he couldn’t get away with it anywhere else.
How on earth can the FCA permit market abuse on this scale?
Bobo
“Lower R&D spending than peers is a fact, but this is in part due to the nature of the product and the total figure is rising anyway”
___________
R&D costs were listed at £44 million on their income statement two weeks ago. Can SF elaborate on their false claims by telling us how spending more could improve the product? No of course they can’t because they know nothing about the business.
Shadowfall is a boiler room operation run by ignoramuses who don’t have a clue how to value stocks - least of all tech companies.
Their gambit is to short companies and then trash-talk them down with fake news - exploiting people’s ignorance of tech shares. What SF can tell you about DT would fit on a postage stamp.