After a discussion with another very senior market professional (he was Global Head of Trading at a major Investment bank and very long also, btw I am currently head of trading albeit at a much smaller bank than he was) we both agree on what probably happened over the last three years which is in short.
1. We were shorted as all biotecs are
2. Woodford appeared from nowhere and doubled our share price
3. The HF shorts got hammered and produced Phase V, selling more probably creating a net short position in the $4-6 range
4. When the toxic finance started they probably made another drive but would have covered all their naked shorts anywhere below $2 and 75 cents
5. Once a share is delisted it gets its own downward momentum which indeed would have meant huge profits for the HF`s that held their nerve.
6. Currently there are algo`s selling and day traders that are selling on spikes knowing that it’s a good bet that nearly all small Biotecs return to dust, they wont even know the name of the company they are selling, but there will literally be hundreds of small companies and traders doing this. Ofcourse the market could open at $2 but these companies will only be short NWBO as a tiny percentage of their portfolio of shorts so net-net it would not be a big deal.
So all of the above I`m convinced of but what we want to reconcile is the selling at .30 by Knight Capital yesterday.
The questions that need answering are:
Questions
1. Where did they get the shares from?
2. Why 30 cents, why not move their offers up to 32 or 35 etc?
3. Why Knight Capital?
Answers
1. Since March 17 our average price has been .225 cents and the average daily volume has been 2.409m shares. The current sellers ARE MOST LIKELY NOT short selling they are simply selling shares they accumulated over this incredible long period of price depression during which they accumulated a huge war chest because remember THEY KNOW 100% WE ARE ONLY DOWN HERE BECAUSE OF THEIR INDISCRIMINATE SELLING, and know fair value is much much higher
2. Well it’s obvious that warrants get exercised in the 30’s which ordinarily means more issuance which is one of the main criteria for algo shorts.
3. Knight capital is a red herring , I`ve tried to explain to you before but you generally don’t understand that right now I could put a buy order in for 10m shares split across 25 different brokers and simultaneously give Knight an order to sell 10m, the name of the company that actually transact the trades TELLS US NOTHING about who`s behind the trades.
So there`s no `Mr Shortie` (anymore) there are indeed hundreds of short only sellers though that all know the level new shares are issued but probably don’t even know the name of our company.
That’s why there`s been no law suit against the `shorts`, because there would be no `short squeeze`. If we announced a lawsuit, we would rally but the buyers would be speculators on naked shorts buying back, and when they realised its not happening we`d return to the price we started at.
I am not ruling out some kind of suit against those that sold us and got us booted from Nasdaq but that’s a different story and will mean zero to our current PPS.
Question
So maybe I`ll end with the last big question that retail punters don’t really understand, ` why isn’t everyone scrambling to buy our stock, we`ve got great science, superb data, cash in the bank and already giving warnings of imminent top line?`
Answer
We are listed on the OTC that prohibits all professional investors that deal with any form of investment portfolio from buying our stock, believe me that is why we are at 30 cents and firmly plugged in the mud.
Yesterday the total cash value of all trading in NWBO was $1m, remember this is news that guarantees the finish line so really significant stuff but many of you simply don’t realise how tiny that $1m is, AMRN traded a cash value of $2BN the day it released news last month, thats 2000 times more than us yesterday.
The ONLY think that gets us unplugged from this swamp is `something` with Large Pharma and / or a definitive time line of data release.
Many of us were told that when the cash deal has secured our immediate future the big news will be released via multiple PR`’s, I have no reason to believe that isn’t about to happen.
