The recent furore over the US retail short-selling war has cooled down somewhat. Who has lost and who has won so far in this short-selling wave? Let’s take a look at the following.
Hedge fund shorts lost a lot of money
According to some fund investors, some U.S. hedge funds lost a lot of money in January, especially those who shorted WSB concepts such as GME and AMC.
Well-known hedge funds such as Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital Partners and Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management both suffered huge losses in January this year, and both were planted on top of GameStop. However, there were also hedge funds that profited from the turbulent trading.
Because stocks like GME and AMC that had been heavily shorted began to soar wildly in late January, most hedge funds’ January report cards were not very good.
Melvin Capital (Melvin Capital), which was heavily short GameStop, lost as much as 53% in January, and Maplelane, which was also short GME, lost a whopping 45%. Some other hedge funds also plunged, such as Point72, which lost nearly 9%, and David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which lost 11%.
D1 Capital Partners, one of the best-performing hedge funds last year, has lost about 20% this year alone as of Jan. 27, making it one of the biggest victims of the retail short-selling wave.
Hedge funds shorting GameStop have lost $19.75 billion overall so far this year, based on market capitalization, according to S3 Partners data.
Despite the nearly $20 billion loss, the short sellers have not been wiped out, and the current short position in the GME is still not insignificant. data from S3 show that naked short sales of GME shares fell by only about 5 million last week, meaning short selling interest fell by just 8%. the size of the GME’s short position remains at more than $11 billion.
Retail investors are not the biggest winners
So, which hedge funds “beat” retail investors are not making a killing?
The U.S. retail “leader” in January’s return reached a staggering 4,000%, a profit of more than $ 47 million. However, this is only the data for January, as the two days of the retail investors sought after the stock began to pull back, before the gains are quickly retracted. The retail “leader” this week has been two consecutive days of significant losses, Monday lost more than $ 5 million, followed by Tuesday lost more than $ 13 million, after the gains have been retracted to only 1000%, two days less than three-quarters.
However, even with the sharp profit retraction, he still hasn’t dumped GME shares. He has held 50,000 shares of GME stock since the beginning of 2021, as well as 500 GME call options.
The “bellwether” is not the biggest earner on GME stock, as there are nine other investors who have made even more.
These nine investors, the least also earned 1.1 billion U.S. dollars, the most earned 3 billion U.S. dollars, adding up to a profit of more than 16 billion U.S. dollars, which translates into more than 100 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that institutions accounted for the majority of these nine investors. Seven were institutional investors, making a cumulative total of more than $12 billion.
For example, Fidelity FMR, which holds up to 9.5 million shares of GME, accounting for nearly 14% of the outstanding shares, made a big profit of $3 billion this Time. BlackRock and Pioneer Group, which hold 12.3% and 7.6% of GME’s outstanding shares, respectively, made $2.7 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively, in the retail short-selling wave.
These are just the profits made by institutional investors on this one stock of GME. From the overall results in January, there are also many hedge funds that made a lot of money and became the real winners.
According to Reuters, a person familiar with the matter said hedge fund Mudrick Capital had its best-ever monthly performance in January, with its assets under management growing 9.8% in January after expanding 11.2% in 2020.
Mudrick was a winner because it was not in the short-side camp, but instead also saved AMCs with a clever financing operation, and is considered a hero by retail investors as a result.
In addition, Dinakar Singh’s Axon Capital, which made gains of 8.5% in January and then 8% in the first two days of February, had bet last year that vaccines would soon boost tourism.
This shows that, on the surface, this is a “war” of retail investors sniping at Wall Street institutions, but in fact, retail investors are just another group of institutional “pawns”, but essentially a game between institutions. In the end, the most profitable, or institutions.
At this time to enter the field of retail investors fear to become the last “receiver”
Now, the shorting wave has cooled down, but it is still not completely over. Although stocks such as GME have fallen sharply, there are still calls on Reddit forums for people not to admit defeat. For example, one user named “mwybert” posted a call to other retail investors.
“Guys, we need to stick together to make this work. Buy on dips and hold! It’s not over yet for all of us”.
Even billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said in a Feb. 2 online Q&A with WSB.
“If you can afford to hold the stock, then continue to hold it. Even though I don’t own the stocks, if it were me, I would continue to hold them.”
This statement may seem to be cheering up retail investors, but in reality it may have screwed those who took his word for it. If from a dozen or dozens of dollars on the beginning of the holding of retail investors, just sell a little to be able to profit. But if it is only at this time to think about entering the field of retail investors, the last nine out of ten will become a receiver.
Similar situations are not uncommon in history. So, in the end, most of the retail investors may just get an “honor” of “beating the institution”.
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