Weekly Reports | Sep 28 2023
By Greg Peel
Week Ending September 21, 2023.
The ASX200 peaked early last week above 7300 and then crashed down through 7100 as Wall Street faltered on rising oil prices and bond yields.
The plunge sparked plenty of short activity, as the table below suggests, most of it increases in position. Some moves are simply shuffling among brackets, but for others it’s a slow creep up the table.
One of those is Bank of Queensland ((BOQ)), which ticked up last week to 7.1% shorted – significant for a bank, but could be a long-short play. We do note Bank of Queensland is scheduled to release FY23 financials in less than two weeks, and recent research updates from Goldman Sachs, Jarden and Morgan Stanley all have a negative bias on what to expect.
Lendlease ((LLC)) is another not insignificant company moving up to 7.0% shorted.
The big move last week was that of WA gold explorer/developer Genesis Minerals ((GMD)), which appeared suddenly at 9.4% shorted from nowhere previously.
The company is not raising capital, which would result in such a move, but recent announcements show a lot of ins and outs of substantial shareholdings – out for JPMorgan and Bank of America and in for Van Eck Associates – so therein may lie an innocent explanation.
There were some interesting moves at the bottom of the table.
Zip Co ((ZIP)) has finally left the building, at least for now. The stock peaked at over $10 in February 2021 and now trades at 27c. Lake Resources ((LKE)) has been with us for some time, but after steadily falling after slashing its production guidance recently, this stock has also dropped out.
On the flipside, we welcome back an old friend in a2 Milk ((A2M)), once a short table stalwart, and say hello to Silex Systems ((SLX)), which engages in the research and development, commercialisation, and license of Silex laser enrichment technology.
Silex has had a very choppy run in recent weeks, but that’s typical of small tech stocks.
Weekly short positions as a percentage of market cap:
10%+
PLS 11.8
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