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0 pointszaroth5y ago0 comments

Not long on Nikola, and like I said, I am not making any judgement on the facts or evidence presented whatsoever.

But I was long Tesla during a similar period in their own existence, while short sellers tried to make a similar case that Tesla was a fraud and certain to go bankrupt any day.

There is always a strong reason to question a report when the authors have an extremely vested interest in people believing it, and in fact when the objective truth of whether they are right is less important than how many people they can make believe that they are right.

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marvin5y ago

You're making an underappreciated point: Activist short sellers can be capable of torpedoing a company that would have been successful in their absence, if the company's development depends on financing and goodwill.

It does present a bit of an ethical conundrum. Is it ethically correct to not point out something you believe to be fraudulent?

It's certainly unethical to deliberately slander something you believe to be viable, purposes of profit or not, but it can be hard to tell the difference when judging any such initiative.

I could see the case for banning advocating a short position, reasoning in terms of market manipuiation, but I don't think it's clear-cut. Was also a very close observer to the Tesla shennanigans two years ago, and there were some shameful tactics being used at the time.

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