IPIX’s science is by far the primary reason that
Post# of 72440
A criminal Share Price (SP) attack on a pre-revenue biotech is a liability to the company as capital becomes increasingly expensive and forces the small biotech to dilute. Potential new shareholders look elsewhere for investments that have less risk….UNTIL the small pre-revenue biotech advances their science to a point where non-dilutive revenue is soon to be attained via grants and/or partnerships and the science is at the threshold of being monetized due to patient and market demand. Once this execution of milestone achievement of science advancement, non-dilutive funding and revenue (initially EUA) take place, the investment becomes greatly de-risked. The criminal abuse of naked short selling (NSS) which had been a liability now ironically becomes a shareholder asset. The elimination of risk of trial advancement and the absence of further dilution forces the NSS abusers to accept defeat unlike 90% of their targeted companies (victims). The criminals now have to develop an exit strategy that requires real/actual shares to be sold by IPIX investors to supply the demand of their stock purchases needed to cover their naked position. Their problem is that the IPIX shares needed to cover their deep naked position are being held by IPIX investors that are educated, stubborn and are frankly pissed off. IPIX investors “know what they own”. Investors took great risk to get to this point as they watched their investment get artificially compressed and they want to be justly and fairly rewarded. If the criminals attempted to initiate their NSS covering in this environment it would be disastrous for them with a great imbalance of minimal supply vs high demand. SP would skyrocket.
To minimize their pain they need actual real volume to dramatically increase so that they can initiate the covering of their naked position. IMO this will take place with IPIX after trial results and funding announcements are made as new investors flock in to get a piece of the new hot biotech that has a CV19 elimination drug. New momentum investors and traders will significantly drive up volume which will provide a smoke screen for the criminal hedge funds to start to cover a percentage of their naked position. The criminals need real volume and real sellers. To use an iceberg analogy, the big question is how deep does the ice go that is not visible from the surface?
JFM in another post commented “The truth is...while the "recorded" short position might be 2.5M shares...the fact is, by definition, no one knows for sure what the Naked Short position is.” I totally agree with this viewpoint therefore any estimate has to be an educated or common sense guesstimate using historical data and assumptions. There is very little verification of data supplied by self-regulating entities.
The impossible variable to determine is how many investors actually sold real shares during any certain period. 2021 is interesting in that there has been minimal dilution since 2/10/21 while we wait for human trials that combined with funding will greatly impact IPIX SP. The million dollar question is who would sell their shares during this time? Take an absolute worst and unlikely scenario that Brilacidin has a 10% chance of trial failure and IPIX SP goes to zero (Not a valid worse case as there is significant value in B-IBD UC, B-OM and Kevetrin) but go along with my example. Now assume there is a 90% chance at trial success that will guarantee funding and ramp up short term to $2.60 minimum and in less than a year will be $5.20 per share minimum( IMO SP #s will be much higher than this example but again humor me.)
With a 10% chance of losing your investment vs a 90% chance of 10X plus immediately and 20X plus in less than a year why would anyone sell this year? If most people agreed with this simple and grossly conservative example and guesstimated percentages, how many people would want to maximize how much money that they would lay down on this bet? What if a better estimate is 20x by EOY 2021 and 40x by EOY 2022?
My guesstimate of the degree of NSS is based on comparing transaction volume compared to dilution over the same period of time with significant increases over the past 6 years. Volume is overstated by an average of 40-50% based on the MMs doing mirrored trades which is sometimes called spoofing volume. It is impossible to know for certain how many legit IPIX Longs have been trading IPIX but in 2019 90% of proxies returned a YES vote to allow IPIX to increase Authorized Shares from 300M to 600M. IMO that was a strong validation that a majority of IPIX shareholders were Long and Strong and in it for the Long haul. Why would investors vote YES unless they believed in IPIX Long Term value, believe in the science and trust Leo to advance Brilacidin to market? If your plans were to flip IPIX after it hit only $1 or $2 why vote YES? If you are holding on for $5, $10, $20 or $50 you would vote your shares YES knowing it will be a 2+ year monetization of the science and understand additional dilution is part of the price of poker. In my small world of IPIX investors that I have visibility to, various shareholders hold or control maybe a cumulative of 16M-17M shares. These shares only represent a little under 4% of overall OS but do have some statistical significance. If these shareholders are in any way representative of the average IPIX Long, the criminals are really screwed. IMO knowledgeable IPIX shareholders are holding tight and most will hold 80% or more of their position until SP is at minimum of $10+/share.
IMO there are some investors that trade IPIX but I believe most are buy and hold. So you have to ask the question of WHO IS SELLING as both a buyer and a seller are needed for a stock transaction. Another question is why would some posters post negatively against IPIX science and management for 6 -10 years on a SMB? One of the ring leaders on the other board claims that he is not an IPIX shareholder but gets bored covering larger stocks. Does anyone believe this incredible B.S.? They are paid to do what they do which is post Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). They are a part of a much larger cabal that includes some crooked MMs and hedge funds with deep pockets and financial institutions willing to look the other way, especially in the Wild, Wild West of OTX land.
I used IPIX Outstanding Share (OS) count to account for all IPIX funding via Aspire, MFO, Kips Bay etc. over the past 7 years. Note that the current OS is 437M and current float is 342M.
2014 December SP peaked at $4.93 with OS at 117M
2015 SP $3.66 to $1.28 (MAKO hit piece & coordinated Rosen Class Action Suit in August 2015) with OS at 120M
2016 SP $1.28 down to $1.16 with OS at 126M
2017 SP $1.16 to $.73 with OS at 146M
2018 88M shares traded, (record 55M of this in the last 4 months) drops SP from .53 to .07 with OS at 180M
2019 124M volume (almost a 50% increase in volume from 2018) and compressed SP down to .05 with OS at 230M
2020 556M volume (524M in the first 9 months alone and explodes by a factor of 6X volume from 2019 to 2020 with OS at 418M
2021 139M YTD volume through 9/30/21 with OS at 437M as of 9/22/21 (Note the huge 73% drop in volume from 2020 first 9 months)
IMO a coordinated attack in 2015 with damage through 2017 and NSS hockey stick increase thru 2020. Criminals or Non Retail (NR) as 4kids calls them went ALL-IN on their NSS position.
The following is a guesstimate for CUMULATIVE NSS position/exposure by year.
EXAMPLE:
2015 NSS 30M-40M compared to OS of 120M after a probable profit SP run up from $2 to $4.93
2016 NSS up to 50M compared to OS of 126M to keep SP in narrow trading range
2017 NSS ups their game to 80M NSS compared to OS of 146M to bring SP down to from $1.26 to .73
2018 NSS 160M - Double from previous year to hammer SP from .53 down to .07 compared to OS at 180M
2019 NSS 200M – Minimum of a 25% increase as volume increases 50% from 2018 compared to OS of 230M
2020 NSS 320M – 60% increase minimum vs a 450% increase in year to year volume – mostly to hold SP .17 to .22 I narrow trading range compared to OS of 418M
2021 NSS 350M – Compared to OS of 437M Again holding SP in narrow trading range.
The proof of the large NSS existence will not be validated until IPIX management executes successful milestone achievements and the criminals see enough volume to begin to cover their naked position. This could happen during a period of time with no significant IPIX PRs taking place. My guess it will take place in a window after an IPIX funding PR and before Up Listing. Most investors will wonder why there are high SP spikes during high volume days with no new news.
Put your criminal hat on for a moment and think about how you would minimize the damage and your losses to cover for example 300M+ naked share exposure:
Strategy A – You start to cover today when SP is .25 while average daily volume is around 1M shares. Chunks of 5M shares per day would take 60 trading days or around 3 calendar months. This could be labeled the Kamikaze strategy as the criminals would drive SP to well over $10 in a few days and if they kept up this strategy IPIX Longs would recognize the desperation and set their GTCs laddered up from $30-$80+. As a conservative example let’s assume they could cover 300M shares at an average of $30 per share or a total cost of $9B. Ouch, next plan please.
Strategy B – Hold SP down sub .30 and don’t let it get above $1 on trial success. Pay your SMB posters bonuses to ingrain a $2.50 best case buyout. When funding news hits, only let enough air out to allow share price to $2. Try to convince worn out investors that they will be lucky to get $3 and possibly $5 if they wait around another 5 years. Try to get the late 60’s and early 70’s demographic to say enough is enough and grab as many shares as possible from them in the $3-7 range. After they grab 75M or so shares each run they let the stock run up a bit more before slamming it down again. Time is not on the criminal’s side as they ideally want to do several rinses and repeats before Up Listing occurs. Let’s say they are only able to make 2 of the 4 runs of 75M share coverage at an average price of $7 or so. $7 x 150M is a little over $1B which is a fraction of the damage to the hedge funds bottom line compared to the above Kamikaze strategy. The remaining 150M shares or more are spread as bad paper to colluding hedge fund peers that exchange some of their bad paper, for example AMC or dozens of targets that missed the mark and survived attacks. A billion dollar loss here or there will not crush a hedge fund that bats 90% success on the companies they put under-water, making hundreds of millions in profits on NSS vapor shares that never have to be covered.
If the above examples have any resemblance to reality, how can a small retail investor fight against a multi-billion dollar entity that colludes with many other multi-billion dollar entities? The simple answer is to set your GTCs at high levels and incrementally ladder them up. This is not investment advice and I realize that everyone's financial needs are different. The longer that shareholders can hold their shares the more pressure there will be on the nefarious hedge funds who will be forced to drive IPIX SP to much higher levels as they cover. Create your own spreadsheet on what you think your investment is worth and make the criminals pay a premium for a piece of your position. As IPIX continues to execute, raise your GTCs higher and higher. I personally believe that hedge fund games will continue at least until IPIX UP Lists which I would expect to take place in early 2022 at which point IPIX SP will start to reflect fair value. The criminals need our shares. Make them pay.