TESLA TO GO PRIVATE & SHORT SELLING IRONY

[rockits]

Really interesting to see that Elon Musk is trying to put a plan together to buy back Tesla into private ownership. I would love to see it happen. I know many startups and companies growing rapidly need investment and venture capitalists however I would love to see some or more larger organisations stick with private ownership. Maybe even the banks could go back to doing what banks should be doing and lending money instead of the VC's.

It was all very ironic that Tesla and/or Elon Musk is being sued for his tweets about the above ideas that allegedly pushed the share price up so short sellers lost their shorts! How ironic!! The whole short selling idea is flawed, wrong and should be banned IMHO. I don't agree with it at all. Never have, never will and been barking on about it for years. It creates massive volatility with zero underlying fundamentals and breeds boom/bust economics. The scumbags that have made millions from it would sell their granny for a fiver. It creates scenarios where a long standing, solid, profitable company can be ripe and exposed to takeovers/buyouts and being purchased at stupidly low values. Then someone buys it for a song, strips the assets or merges it into their own empire. Blah blah. It all stinks and is all to make someone a pot-load of cash. At what expense or cost to others?! Short selling should be banned.....period. Who ever thought it was ever a good idea is an imbecile.

Tesla to go private article link

Hats off to people like Mike Ashley for making the most of the opportunities that we allow him to take advantage of. I don't like the guy, what he stands for or what he does. People like Mike Ashley need to put on a leash as they are becoming too big and powerful for all our own goods. Murdoch was another and don't get me started on Philip Green. These guys are unscrupulous and out for number one. I don't believe it is genuinely good for us as an economy or anybody. Nobody needs that amount of money ever. They can do some good with it and choose to do little if nothing. That kind of money can make an awful difference to be used for accelerated research to a cure for cancer or the like.

One guy I have huge respect for and I'm sure there are many others is Bill Gates. Not just because he was/is involved in my working working world but for what he has given back. The resources plowed into Polio research and eradication is just one things. I don't see the idiots like Ashley, Murdoch & Green doing anything like this on remotely the same scale.

 

[Stratman]

Remember when Porsche annihilated short sellers in 2008?

............................

While "hedgies" bet on VW shares falling because of the global economic downturn, regarded by some as "the safest play in town", Porsche had been secretly building up a 74.1 per cent stake in VW through intermediaries.

When Porsche showed its hand, it sent the VW share price rocketing and exposed the hedge funds to breathtaking losses.

"I have had hedge fund managers literally in tears on the phone," said one London-based analyst yesterday. Others likened the Porsche disclosure to a "nuclear bomb going off in our faces", describing the resulting losses as "a bloodbath".

For many impartial observers, the biggest single loss in the history of hedge funds will be nothing less than just desserts for the "vulture capitalists" who were blamed, perhaps unfairly, for helping bring about the demise of HBOS through their controversial practice of short selling.

......................

 

[Petrol Pete]

That 'Sir Phillip Green' , oh yes I remember when he appeared in court he was listed as 'no fixed abode' That's probably because he lived on one of 3 super yachts (allegedly) none registered in the UK.

Nice work if you can get it.

 

[rockits]

Remember when Porsche annihilated short sellers in 2008?

Thanks for the revisit....forgot about that. I smirked a fair bit when I read that. The hunters had become the hunted. When you swim in shark infested waters one day you are going to get bitten or eaten by one. Not quite the case here but you catch my drift.

 

[rockits]

That 'Sir Phillip Green' , oh yes I remember when he appeared in court he was listed as 'no fixed abode' That's probably because he lived on one of 3 super yachts (allegedly) none registered in the UK.

Nice work if you can get it.

I don't get how it can be accepted that Philip Green had no fixed abode. What is he.....a traveller? Surely he has to have a primary fixed residence that he spends a majority of his time. Even if he doesn't then the majority time spent location should be taken as that primary or fixed abode.

 

[Petrol Pete]

I don't get how it can be accepted that Philip Green had no fixed abode. What is he.....a traveller? Surely he has to have a primary fixed residence that he spends a majority of his time. Even if he doesn't then the majority time spent location should be taken as that primary or fixed abode.

All I remember is that court records stated he was of no fixed abode, perfectly possible if you are a 'sofa surfing' poor homeless person or a canny billionaire. Last time I looked super yachts had the ability to pull up the anchor and sail away.

 

[del320]

Seen in Malta last year.

 

[markjay]

Is he going to actually delist it, or keep it public but own 100% of shares?

I think that the maim attraction in private ownership is that you don't have to report anything to anyone (apart from the very limited mandatory annual reports submitted to the companies registrar and the tax authorities).

So you can do pretty much whatever you like with little risk of being accussed of varoius criminal offences.

In short you can invest and you can spend as you see fit... and you report only to the shareholders, which is great especially if you happen to be the sole shareholder

 

[markjay]

Ah... the Philip Green affair... is this the one where the media and Members of Parliament took great pleasure in publicly humiliating a much-hated billionaire in front of a cheering crowd, that they forgot to fix the problem that allowed this to happen in the first place?

As far as I am aware no criminal charges were brought against anyone, and no laws were changed, in spite of the fact that the BHS pension fund eneded-up with a staggering £571m in deficit.

So the problem was fixed by extracting £373m from Sir Philip in return for him being allowed to keep his knighthood.

Which means that it can happen again... only next time the employees might not be so lucky and the bloke in charge might not have a knighthood that's worth £373m to him.

 

[Scott_F]

View attachment 78959

Seen in Malta last year.

And pranked by Simon Brodkin in Greece in 2016 (and most entertaining it was too):

Sir Philip Green Targeted By Comedian Lee Nelson In Yacht Prank

 

[Deleted member 126969]

If ever you needed proof that the “money markets” are corrupt, short trading is it. As an outsider, the entire system looks as bent as a nine bob note to me. They make nothing and do nothing, apart from shuffle other people’s money about, skimming off the top each time it goes past.

 

[Deleted96908]

If ever you needed proof that the “money markets” are corrupt, short trading is it. As an outsider, the entire system looks as bent as a nine bob note to me. They make nothing and do nothing, apart from shuffle other people’s money about, skimming off the top each time it goes past.

Agree with most of that. But some instruments serve genuine purpose. Futures and swaps for example.

Re shorts. I seem to recall Belgium suspending them around 2008ish. About the same time as Goldman Sach’s ceo claimed his bank was doing God’s work. Just months after receiving a $10bn bailout.

 

[neilrr]

Shorters are about the only thing keeping the Wild West AIM market half way straight. It was shorters who exposed Quindell, Cloudtag, AFPO, countless bogus Chinese companies & many other UK based share promotions & frauds, not the FCA or any body charged with regulating the markets.

Shorters are the modern day equivalent of canaries down a coal mine. Ignore them at your peril.

 

[Deleted member 126969]

So the “honesty” of the system relies on the least ethical, most opportunistic to cry foul, rather than the regulators (who, you will never persuade me otherwise, are far from independent). What could possibly go wrong.

I return to my previous point, bent as a nine bob note. I do of course appreciate that there are folk here who make a living in these markets, so I don’t expect a warm response from them.

 

[neilrr]

If you believe the markets are as bent as a nine bob note you should stay away from them. IMO shorters are no where near the least ethical people involved in the stock market.

You as a long have taken a view that shares in Company A will go up, have bought some & are holding awaiting the share price rise you anticipate (making nothing and doing nothing, apart from shuffling your money about as you do so!) while someone with a short position, seeing the company as fundamentally over valued for whatever reason, has made a bet the opposite of yours believing the share price will drop.

Why is that unethical?

 

[markjay]

People who work in finance are like the guy at the parts counter at the Mercedes-Benz dealership.

He doesn't make the parts. He dosent fit the parts. But he makes a living out of knowing what's what and moving the parts from the store to the customer.

So is he a parasite?

 

[Deleted member 6183]

So the “honesty” of the system relies on the least ethical, most opportunistic to cry foul, rather than the regulators (who, you will never persuade me otherwise, are far from independent). What could possibly go wrong.

I return to my previous point, bent as a nine bob note. I do of course appreciate that there are folk here who make a living in these markets, so I don’t expect a warm response from them.

Tell me more.

 

[Deleted member 126969]

Personally I have no direct involvement with any markets, but I do understand that it’s impossible to not have an indirect involvement, so I’m not really in a position to get all high and mighty about it. I just find the entire system distasteful in the extreme. The only way I could avoid being tainted by it would be to become a hermit I suppose.

It seems the shorters have the proven ability to directly influence prices by their actions, thus allowing them to directly manipulate the market. Is the same true of long investors too? I don’t know as I say, I have no involvement.

 

[Scott_F]

^^ But have you in the past ?

 

[Deleted member 126969]

Nope, just that they are pervasive in the modern world.

It’s Ok, I get my opinion isn’t popular, I’ll get me coat.