New SmithOnStocks email newsletter details how shorts attack companies. It's worth reading the whole thing (you can skip over the part at the beginning, which is about NWBO). Here are some excerpts that are particularly relevant for CTIX. He refers to groups of hedge funds as "the wolfpack."
https://smithonstocks.com/northwest-biotherap...nwbo-0-62/
Quote:In addition to a huge technological advantage, the wolfpack is expert at manipulating public opinion to create fear, uncertainty and doubt. I think that they can control prices with their trading power alone, but shaping sentiment negatively is synergistic and creates a cover for their illegal trading activities. The wolfpack has the resources to hire very bright people or consultants with great technological expertise. We all understand that new technologies and drugs have uncertainties so that a sophisticated person can spin a positive outcome negatively if it is in the self-interest of the wolfpack. Their aim is to fashion seemingly compelling counter-arguments that undercut the arguments of supporters of a stock. Commonly, they make blatantly false statements. They are expert at making good news appear to be bad. Hiring sophisticated employees and consultants extends beyond science to areas such as statistics, accounting, law etc.
Quote:I believe that in the case of many bloggers with significant followings that much of their content comes from short sellers and in many cases, their reports are cut and pasted from reports written by the short sellers. The wolfpack invariably assigns one or more persons to chat room message boards to plant negative arguments and to try to unfailingly spin comments from other participants in a negative way. The broadly followed Seeking Alpha website has been a great boon for short sellers. Its editorial policy allows anonymous short sellers to issue reports that attack a wolfpack company target without conscientious editing of the reports or making an effort to make sure the article is balanced and accurate.
Quote:Sometimes sophisticated and arcane arguments are made. At other times, the report makes a ridiculous statement. For example, it was alleged that the immune response and signal of possible activity against inoperable solid tumors seen from the phase 1 DCVax Direct trials, resulted from sticking the needle in a tumor and not the cells in the vaccine. The argument was that the syringe was responsible, not the vaccine. The truth or even elegance of arguments doesn’t really matter, it is the stream on unending negative reports that is key.
No matter what kind of news is press released, it is portrayed as negative. Making good news appear to be bad is a particular skill set. Invariably, heavy shorting to drive the stock price down is used to reinforce the negative spin.
Ferocious attacks are made on managements in an effort to make the managements appear to be defrauding shareholders. This is kind of like John Dillinger making Melvin Purvis the bad guy. Linda Powers has been the subject of numerous such allegations.
https://smithonstocks.com/northwest-biotherap...nwbo-0-62/
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