Replies to post #42788 on NorthWest Biotherapeutics Inc (NWBO)

[beachlifeisfun]

BINGO! EXACTLY CORRECT! ;)

[Ready4bluesky]

Oh, maybe I'm just really slow on the uptake of Beach's theory of what's going on here. The original post had no mention of the July options, so I guess that's new. But let's talk about a couple of his claims and your response. Maybe you can help me see the light :)


"whoever added the 2.3 million short interest did so at a price that was mostly above the average strike price of the 2.3 million puts."

These shares were shorted between 9/15 - 9/30. The average strike price of the puts that would execute is above $8.


"It is common for a very large shareholder to "trickle short" shares when the stock has considerable upward momentum, only to buy it back when the stock starts trending down, in order to stop the trend."

The 2.3m short occurred from 9/15-9/30. In case you didn't notice, not a period of considerable upward momentum.

I am a lot more inclined to believe the short increase has more to do with overall market/sector pressure than Woody shorting the stock to save the day later. What happened to the Patient style long term strategy that Woodford manifests? Remember, the kind of investment horizons that take years. Now we are painting him as being worried about short term fluctuations? I think it's more likely that Woody is about to have 2m shares Put to him next Friday than the theory above. He probably never expected it back in July when most of the puts were sold.

Do you use ymb email? Sorry, missed my happy hour chance.

[beachlifeisfun]

It's as if Woodford helped push us up to the July options... in order to take those shares off the table.

Yes, I am quite certain that Woodford instigated the rapid increase in share price prior to the July options expiration to, as you say, "take the shares off the table."

And I know that many are criticizing my argument (Ready) and saying that shorting 2.3 million shares would make the share price drop.

However, with the volume of shares that Woodford purchased, he would be silly not to short a percentage of shares for an occasion such as this. And, no, it wouldn't necessarily cause a drop in share price. If he shorted say 1,000 shares each time he purchased 10,000 share blocks...there are reasons why he is buying on the open market...

AND, you do know that Martin Shkreli is a hedge fund manager, right? He knew that what he did, raising the cost of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per tablet, knowing that health insurance companies are on-the-hook to pay, would evoke a response from politicians. IMO This was a planned attack on the whole IBB, which hedgies knew was already inflated. Hedge funds are desperate to eek out a gain this year. It's a very bad year for hedge funds and this "play" will certainly boost the bottom line of some of them.