BIVI Update – Shorting Crooks Works!
Hi OpTrackers,
I originally wrote up as a short candidate back in March of 2023. The company’s controlling shareholder and (at the time) Chairman was an alleged crook and the rest of the supporting cast didn’t inspire confidence.
Unfortunately, due to the high borrow cost I closed the position for recordkeeping purposes in July after a small but brisk gain and even better performance on an alpha basis.
In hindsight that was a mistake, as the stock is down >60% today on results of their failed Alzheimer’s trial. The stock is down >70% since I originally wrote it up. The borrow costs would have been worth the wait.
So this is a good reminder that you should never take anything I say about tactical trading as gospel! In fact, it’s worthwhile to remember nothing here is investing advice and you should always consult an actual professional financial advisors because doing anything risky with your hard-earned money.
That said, this is an excellent case study in the value/potential rewards of “following the people” in your investment process. I know nothing about Alzheimer’s (except that it’s notoriously impossible to treat). In fact, if someone had handed me this trial data prior to its publication, I would genuinely be incapable of reading the results and determining if the results had been good or bad. But by following the characters involved, you can get a pretty good read on the odds of whether or not a given company will be the crew that comes up with the next breakthrough in medical science. And I would posit to you that it was knowable in advance that these were not the droids Alzheimer’s patients were looking for.
If you’re interested in hearing about more of these types of setups, please subscribe below or share this Substack with anyone you think might be interested.
I will be publishing a broader update on all the names I am still following for the month of October shortly. Until then, happy hunting!
