The Short Report – 18 May 2023

This story features WEBJET LIMITED, and other companies. For more info SHARE ANALYSIS: WEB

See Guide further below (for readers with full access).

Summary:

By Greg Peel

Week Ending May 11, 2023.

Last week the ASX200 bottomed out post the RBA rate hike tumble before rallying back to the support level of 7200 and beyond.

As the table below suggests, there was an awful lot of shuffling about of positions, but only one exceeded one percentage point or more, with the rest ticking up and down the brackets.

We did, however, see a net increase of four stocks on the table, including Webjet ((WEB)), which reports earnings next week, and property developer Lendlease ((LLC)).

From last week’s Report:

Notably coming into the table last week was Appen ((APX)), on 5.6%. The AI company delivered its quarterly update yesterday and promptly fell -28%.

Last week Appen shorts jumped to 10.5%. See below.

Weekly short positions as a percentage of market cap:

10%+
FLT     12.0
APX    10.5
ZIP      10.4

In: APX

9.0-9.9%

No stocks       

8.0-8.9%

CXO, JRV, PBH, SYA, SHV, LKE

In: CXO, JRV, SHV               Out: AMA, TPW

7.0-7.9%

TPW, AMA, BRG, BET, JBH, MP1

In: TPW, AMA, BET             Out: SHV, BRN         

6.0-6.9%

BRN, PLS, ACL, ARB, NVX, NXT, DOW

In: BRN, PLS, ARB, NXT, DOW                 Out: BET, VUL, INA, IEL

5.0-5.9%

OBL, IEL, BOQ, INA, AWC, CCP, VUL, SGR, BOE, LLC, ABB, IMU, EML, WEB

In: IEL, INA, VUL, CCP, SGR, LLC, EML, WEB              

Out: APX, NXT, ARB, PLS, DOW, LTR

Movers & Shakers

Artificial intelligence is now the hottest thing on Wall Street since the rush of dotcom listings in the 1990s. Mention AI often enough in your company briefings and you're guaranteed to draw investor attention. Put AI in your company name and you may fly to the moon.

No one believes every AI aspirant or pretender will survive. Everyone agrees AI is set to change the world (it already is – it didn’t just spring up yesterday) but there is no agreement on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

It is nevertheless agreed AI has the capacity to drive a new boom on Wall Street, maybe even enough to stem recession fears in the short term, or at least help the S&P500 break out of its stubborn range. Elon Musk believes it will destroy humanity.

The Australian market is not exactly littered with AI companies, but Appen – an AI lifecycle company that provides data sourcing, data annotation, and model evaluation solutions – is one of them. On that basis one would expect Appen to be riding the wave.

Not so. Appen’s share price has fallen from a peak of $43.50 in August 2020 to $2.33 currently, including a -28% plunge last week on a trading update, as the company has failed to live up to expectations. The fear is Appen will not ride the AI wave, rather be dumped by it as the US moves swiftly.

In an attempt to right the ship, Appen last week conducted a $600m capital raising. While positive, it was not enough to shift FNArena database brokers Macquarie, Morgan Stanley and Citi from their Sell or equivalent ratings, but Bell Potter upgraded to Hold following the share price crunch, envisaging no need for the company to take on debt or do another capital raising for at least the next three years and suggesting the main negative catalysts have now passed.

Appen’s increase in short position to 10.5% from 5.6% does not imply shorters going in for the kill, rather an attempted arbitrage of shorts versus discounted stock picked up in the raising. By this week, Appen shorts will likely fall right back again.

ASX20 Short Positions (%)

Code	Last Week	Week Before	Code	Last Week	Week Before
ALL	0.3	0.3	NCM	0.6	0.6
ANZ	0.8	0.6	RIO	1.2	1.1
BHP	0.3	0.4	S32	0.5	0.8
CBA	1.6	1.6	STO	1.0	1.0
COL	0.6	0.5	TCL	0.6	0.6
CSL	0.4	0.4	TLS	0.2	0.2
FMG	1.4	1.4	WBC	1.8	1.8
GMG	0.6	0.6	WDS	1.0	1.0
MQG	0.7	0.6	WES	0.8	0.8
NAB	0.9	0.9	WOW	0.6	0.7

To see the full Short Report, please go to this link

Guide:

The Short Report draws upon data provided by the Australian Securities & Investment Commission (ASIC) to highlight significant weekly moves in short positions registered on stocks listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX). Short positions in exchange-traded funds (ETF) and non-ordinary shares are not included. Short positions below 5% are not included in the table below but may be noted in the accompanying text if deemed significant.

Please take note of the Important Information provided at the end of this report. Percentage amounts in this report refer to percentage of ordinary shares on issue.

Stock codes highlighted in green have seen their short positions reduce in the week by an amount sufficient to move them into a lower percentage bracket. Stocks highlighted in red have seen their short positions increase in the week by an amount sufficient to move them into a higher percentage bracket. Moves in excess of one percentage point or more are discussed in the Movers & Shakers report below.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THIS REPORT

The above information is sourced from daily reports published by the Australian Investment & Securities Commission (ASIC) and is provided by FNArena unqualified as a service to subscribers. FNArena would like to make it very clear that immediate assumptions cannot be drawn from the numbers alone.

It is wrong to assume that short percentages published by ASIC simply imply negative market positions held by fund managers or others looking to profit from a fall in respective share prices. While all or part of certain short percentages may indeed imply such, there are also a myriad of other reasons why a short position might be held which does not render that position “naked” given offsetting positions held elsewhere. Whatever balance of percentages truly is a “short” position would suggest there are negative views on a stock held by some in the market and also would suggest that were the news flow on that stock to turn suddenly positive, “short covering” may spark a short, sharp rally in that share price. However short positions held as an offset against another position may prove merely benign.

Often large short positions can be attributable to a listed hybrid security on the same stock where traders look to “strip out” the option value of the hybrid with offsetting listed option and stock positions. Short positions may form part of a short stock portfolio offsetting a long share price index (SPI) futures portfolio – a popular trade which seeks to exploit windows of opportunity when the SPI price trades at an overextended discount to fair value. Short positions may be held as a hedge by a broking house providing dividend reinvestment plan (DRP) underwriting services or other similar services. Short positions will occasionally need to be adopted by market makers in listed equity exchange traded fund products (EFT). All of the above are just some of the reasons why a short position may be held in a stock but can be considered benign in share price direction terms due to offsets.

Market makers in stock and stock index options will also hedge their portfolios using short positions where necessary. These delta hedges often form the other side of a client's long stock-long put option protection trade, or perhaps long stock-short call option (“buy-write”) position. In a clear example of how published short percentages can be misleading, an options market maker may hold a short position below the implied delta hedge level and that actually implies a “long” position in that stock.

Another popular trading strategy is that of “pairs trading” in which one stock is held short against a long position in another stock. Such positions look to exploit perceived imbalances in the valuations of two stocks and imply a “net neutral” market position.

Aside from all the above reasons as to why it would be a potential misconception to draw simply conclusions on short percentages, there are even wider issues to consider. ASIC itself will admit that short position data is not an exact science given the onus on market participants to declare to their broker when positions truly are “short”. Without any suggestion of deceit, there are always participants who are ignorant of the regulations. Discrepancies can also arise when short positions are held by a large investment banking operation offering multiple stock market services as well as proprietary trading activities. Such activity can introduce the possibility of either non-counting or double-counting when custodians are involved and beneficial ownership issues become unclear.

Finally, a simple fact is that the Australian Securities Exchange also keeps its own register of short positions. The figures provided by ASIC and by the ASX at any point do not necessarily correlate.

FNArena has offered this qualified explanation of the vagaries of short stock positions as a warning to subscribers not to jump to any conclusions or to make investment decisions based solely on these unqualified numbers. FNArena strongly suggests investors seek advice from their stock broker or financial adviser before acting upon any of the information provided herein.

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