Naked Shorting Poll

[harryx1]

Naked Shorting Poll

[mango]

I love the last option! It’s amazing how some here, and elsewhere, have manufactured a narrative that this illegal activity that has been happening to MannKind for years is nothing but a “conspiracy theory.” Aside from all the evidence Harry has provided in the main thread about this, I also provided several SEC court documents pertaining to illegal naked short selling schemes where MannKind’s name is in the documents and was one of many a victim.

The evidence is real. It’s plentiful and it warrants an investigation.

I voted for #1.

[markado]

As much as I believe NS has been happening - I specifically remember a Columbus Day where MNKD share price was driven downward, but the SEC was on government holiday, so no-one available to halt - I submitted a complaint - I think, at this point, we wait for earnings and projections to return us to higher SP levels, and then go fact finding. I am not averse to a suggested budget for the project with a specific intended outcome. I just don't want to waste resources on an endless endeavor. I'm abstaining for now.

[longliner]

Harry, I think you may have lost some of the favorites here when you begin with "As a long term investor". #1 

[centralcoastinvestor]

Where is the tar and feather option on the poll?

[awesomo]

Why are we still harping on this? Every company gets naked shorted. MannKind was heavily targeted in the past, as evident by the documents/charts from like 5+ years ago.

Is MannKind still being naked shorted? Yes, just like every other company. Is MannKind being specifically targeted more than others right now? Not really based on the numbers because the company is doing better than it was.

Best way to mitigate this, blow out earnings and become a consistently profitable company.

[ktim]

Since I was mentioned, I guess I should respond. Of course I believe naked shorting, in the broad sense, exists. It's done every and all day long by market makers. It merely means they sell a share before buying it from someone else. It's basically part of the job of a market maker to provide that sort of liquidity, and market pricing spreads would be higher if not for the market makers.

Presumably this question is talking about disallowed or inappropriate naked shorting, though it baffles me the resistance to drawing that distinction.

Personally, in this day and age (with everything being able to be automated at the millisecond level), I don't believe fail to delivers should be allowed at all. If the charts above are accurate, it appears at one point in 2017 there was one night where roughly 1% (based on today's shares outstanding not 2017) of owned shares were what I guess could legitimately be called "fake" shares. I assume that was a period of attack by short sellers. I certainly don't have enough expertise in the innards of the market to know what effect that might have had on the stock price beyond the short selling that would have occurred without the fails to deliver. 1% may not seem huge, but looking at today's statistics one can see the average daily volume for past 10 days is just about 1%, so I certainly would believe that affected share price then. I can see where someone that got stopped out or scared out in a short raid with that level of fail to deliver would have reason to be upset. There really is no reason in the interconnected computer age to allow any level of fails to deliver.

If those fails to deliver were closed out consistent with SHO (or whatever other reg covers that), there likely wouldn't be anything to be done as MNKD or a shareholder UNLESS there was some clear evidence the naked shorting was intentional, which likely would be hard to prove. Though, I certainly believe "hard to prove" does not equate to "didn't happen". (yet another reason to totally disallow fails to deliver... i.e. require borrow before short, rather than merely "locate")

I didn't vote in this because I don't agree with the wording/framing of the question and allowed answers. Before I'd advocate for the company using resources to hire Shareintel, I'd certainly want further explanation as to why the Shareintel founder says that they work with company executives in private because the executives interests with regard to Shareintel's services aren't necessarily aligned with a company's shareholders. What in the hell is that about?

[hellodolly]

Feb 14, 2023 13:26:45 GMT -5 ktim said:

Since I was mentioned, I guess I should respond. Of course I believe naked shorting, in the broad sense, exists. It's done every and all day long by market makers. It merely means they sell a share before buying it from someone else. It's basically part of the job of a market maker to provide that sort of liquidity, and market pricing spreads would be higher if not for the market makers.

Presumably this question is talking about disallowed or inappropriate naked shorting, though it baffles me the resistance to drawing that distinction.

Personally, in this day and age (with everything being able to be automated at the millisecond level), I don't believe fail to delivers should be allowed at all. If the charts above are accurate, it appears at one point in 2017 there was one night where roughly 1% (based on today's shares outstanding not 2017) of owned shares were what I guess could legitimately be called "fake" shares. I assume that was a period of attack by short sellers. I certainly don't have enough expertise in the innards of the market to know what effect that might have had on the stock price beyond the short selling that would have occurred without the fails to deliver. 1% may not seem huge, but looking at today's statistics one can see the average daily volume for past 10 days is just about 1%, so I certainly would believe that affected share price then. I can see where someone that got stopped out or scared out in a short raid with that level of fail to deliver would have reason to be upset. There really is no reason in the interconnected computer age to allow any level of fails to deliver.

If those fails to deliver were closed out consistent with SHO (or whatever other reg covers that), there likely wouldn't be anything to be done as MNKD or a shareholder UNLESS there was some clear evidence the naked shorting was intentional, which likely would be hard to prove. Though, I certainly believe "hard to prove" does not equate to "didn't happen". (yet another reason to totally disallow fails to deliver... i.e. require borrow before short, rather than merely "locate")

I didn't vote in this because I don't agree with the wording/framing of the question and allowed answers. Before I'd advocate for the company using resources to hire Shareintel, I'd certainly want further explanation as to why the Shareintel founder says that they work with company executives in private because the executives interests with regard to Shareintel's services aren't necessarily aligned with a company's shareholders. What in the hell is that about?

Not all that familiar with SEC elements to prove any sort of theft but, the act of NS itself doesn't need to be proven as intentional, rather the vehicle used in the scheme.  It just needs to be proven and that as a result of their NS, there is an ongoing organized scheme to defraud with the intent to appropriate investor funds for their own profit.  These are some of the essential elements to "theft."

[cedafuntennis]

I think the SEC is in on this naked shorting and does NOTHING about it.  This is not only for MNKD but across the markets.

[ktim]

Just noticed Harry's chart. That's actually what I remember from years ago when I looked at the fail to deliver data on SEC site... the correlation between fail to deliver and share price movement was inconsistent. That chart shows that the big spike in FTD in 2015 actually occurred in a period of rising price. Though I do remember finding spikes in FTD that corresponded with drops in share price. A likely interpretation of that 2015 chart is that shorts were trying to hold down the share price increase. Would the share price increase been more if not for the fails to deliver... very possibly. Would a greater increase have had positive effect for MNKD over the subsequent time period? How would one assess potential damages for such short selling in any litigation scenario?

If in May of 2015 I'd had a limit order to sell at $8, I'd likely be furious that undelivered shares might have prevented me getting out before much more losses... though at that point I was definitely holding out for more than $8.

Many here sort of know my history with MNKD, but for context: I first invested (lost all) with MNKD buying calls before the first CRL. I bought in more heavily before the adcom and subsequent approval. Had nice profit, didn't sell. Bought more and more as shares fell. I started some short term trading on top of that core holdings, which helped eat away at losses. In 2019 I needed as much capital loss capture as I could find, so sold all of my MNKD holding except for still sizeable shares in retirement accounts. Shear luck of timing, COVID then allowed me to buy all of that back and more at much lower price. I've definitely made my money back and more... at least on paper.

However, I'd have no problem being involved in class action for the large losses I took in 2019, if nefarious players are uncovered, but I'm far less emotionally invested in it given my recouping of losses (some from trading decision, mostly from luck).

Since my gains are still invested, I get interested in visiting this forum, especially now heading into an earnings report I am hopeful will send us to new multiyear highs.

I do have great deal of empathy for long term investors in MNKD. At one point it accounted for a scarily sizeable % loss in my retirement savings.

I just don't have strong opinion on what the long term effect, if any, short selling has had on the overall fall and then rise of MNKD. We know for instance that the type of creditors MNKD needed to go to are ones that short the shares of companies they lend to in order to hedge. If there were no shorting, it might also be true there would have been no funding when we needed it. You don't go to those lenders if you have other sources of funding.

[ktim]

I was furious at Sanofi and what they did, which I feel was clearly breach of contract. I was glad they paid some settlement and give Mike credit for accomplishing that. That likely would have been expensive and risky litigation, but Mike managed to get something meaningful without a court fight.

[robbmo]

Feb 14, 2023 13:18:54 GMT -5 awesomo said:

Why are we still harping on this? Every company gets naked shorted. MannKind was heavily targeted in the past, as evident by the documents/charts from like 5+ years ago.

Is MannKind still being naked shorted? Yes, just like every other company. Is MannKind being specifically targeted more than others right now? Not really based on the numbers because the company is doing better than it was.

Best way to mitigate this, blow out earnings and become a consistently profitable company.

Yes, I agree.  5 years ago, I would have been all for it, but now I believe it would be a distraction.  We need to stay laser focused on executing our plan and growing the company.

[cretin11]

Feb 14, 2023 14:46:06 GMT -5 ktim said:

I was furious at Sanofi and what they did, which I feel was clearly breach of contract. I was glad they paid some settlement and give Mike credit for accomplishing that. That likely would have been expensive and risky litigation, but Mike managed to get something meaningful without a court fight.

Agree with your posts, ktim. Was hoping to vote in this poll, but the wording is flawed so none of the choices are correct IMO.

And I also agree about giving credit for accomplishing that settlement with Sanofi. Protracted litigation would’ve been bad for MNKD and the result obtained was much needed at the time. As much as Mike C. has struggled, even I must give him credit for that settlement. It was one of his best results, I had forgotten he did that (thought it was Pfeffer).

[harryx1]

IMO, this is bigger than MNKD but MNKD was part of it. MNKD was almost destroyed because of Naked Shorting because of the Snakofi debacle which then in turn brought the crooks who tried everything they could to bury the company. Toxic raises, etc.

Thankfully the company survived without having to go through Chapter 11 and is now in the best financial shape ever and will be going forward. Hopefully that stops the crooks from doing what they did in the past, however there might be other companies you invest in that might not fair so well.

IMO, naked shorting needs to be addressed and right now there are many finally standing up to it. So IMO this it the time to do it.

We have the technology to fix these issues but the people making billions using those tactics will fight it.

[radgray68]

Somebody will manufacture shares to spike our stock on big news too. The top 1/3 of shorts will do okay, middle 1/3 will break even. But, the last 1/3 of shorts to try to exit will get crushed by mysterious upward manipulation.
I trust the rule of greed to keep things…well…let’s call them even.