Month: August 2018

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Article: Cronos Stock Declines by 30% After Citron Blast

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Cronos Stock Declines by 30% After Citron Blast

NATHAN REIFF, 31 August 2018

Canadian cannabis company Cronos Group, Inc. (CRON) fell by nearly 30% on Thursday following a damning prediction by Citron Research’s famous short-seller Andrew Left. According to MarketWatch, Left published a so-called “reality check” about the company and the future of the legal cannabis industry in general. Along with other factors, most importantly growing concerns about a federal pushback against marijuana legalization, Left’s report seems to have deflated several stocks in the burgeoning space. Along with CRON’s decline, fellow Canadian rivals Canopy Growth Corp. (CGC) and Tilray Inc. (TLRY) both fell, though by much smaller margins. (See also: Marijuana ETF Attracts $22 Million in August)
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Article: Cronos Group, Analyst Respond To Citron’s Short Report

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Cronos Group, Analyst Respond To Citron’s Short Report

Wayne Duggan, 31 August 2018

Citron’s Andrew Left said Thursday morning that Cronos’ agreements are so small that they wouldn’t even come close to justifying the huge gains in the company’s market cap. Left said Cronos lags its Canadian cannabis peers in sales, trades at a steep premium to Canopy Growth Corp CGC 0.42% (which has a beverage deal in place), has a history of product recalls, has no U.S. business and is spending practically nothing on research and development.

“When looking at Cronos relative to other cannabis stocks that have yet to receive a ‘beverage deal,’ Cronos’ sky high valuation looks completely out of whack with fundamentals,” Left said.
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Article: Cronos Group besieged by short-seller Andrew Left’s Citron Research, shares fall and end sharply up Friday

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Cronos Group besieged by short-seller Andrew Left’s Citron Research, shares fall and end sharply up Friday

Ellen Kelleher, 31 August 2018

Shares in the Canadian cannabis group Cronos Group Inc (NASDAQ:CRON) have taken a tumble after the infamous short seller Andrew Left’s firm Citron Research delivered a pessimistic call on the stock. In a note to investors and via its Twitter feed, Citron Research charged that Cronos is the “most overhyped” of all the pot stocks and set a price target of US$3.50 on the Ontario-based company.

The stock fell by 28.4% to US$9.12 in Thursday’s after-hours session. Those losses were extended early on Friday when Cronos stock on the Nasdaq in New York slid another 4.5% to trade at US$8.70 in premarket business. But just as quickly, the stock reversed when trading got going on Friday. Shares climbed to a session peak of US$10.29 before ending 8.33% higher at US$9.88. The share rose 0.4% in after hours trade on Friday to US$9.92. In two days of trading, the stock had swung wildly from its lows to its highs.
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Article: Trump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime

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Trump’s Top Targets in the Russia Probe Are Experts in Organized Crime

Some of President Trump’s favorite targets in the Russia probe have spent their careers in the Justice Department and the FBI investigating organized crime and money laundering, particularly as they pertain to Russia.

Bruce Ohr. Lisa Page. Andrew Weissmann. Andrew McCabe. President Donald Trump has relentlessly attacked these FBI and Justice Department officials as dishonest “Democrats” engaged in a partisan “witch hunt” led by the special counsel determined to tie his campaign to Russia.

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Article: A notorious short-seller has come out swinging against a popular marijuana stock (CRON)

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A notorious short-seller has come out swinging against a popular marijuana stock (CRON)

Business Insider, 30 August 2018

Citron Research — a short-selling firm with a history of wiping out stock prices and run by Andrew Left — has a new target: cannabis stocks.

In a report published Thursday, the firm says Cronos, one of the most valuable publicly traded marijuana companies, is worth roughly one-third of its current price: $3.50 per share.

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Article: Cronos CEO ‘confident’ about company’s disclosures amid Citron report

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Cronos CEO ‘confident’ about company’s disclosures amid Citron report

David George-Cosh, 30 August 2018

Cronos Group Inc. (CRON.TO) chief executive Mike Gorenstein said he is “very confident” in the Toronto-based cannabis producer’s disclosures after a short seller released a report alleging that it was “deceiving” investors.

U.S.-based Citron Research published a report Thursday that advised investors to exercise caution in the growing Canadian cannabis space, highlighting Cronos with a price target of just $3.50 a share. The report sent Cronos shares down nearly 27 per cent on the Toronto Stock Exchange, triggering a stock circuit breaker and briefly halted trading in the company’s shares. When shares resumed trading, Cronos fell as much as 29 per cent before paring earlier losses. Despite the dramatic drop, the shares are still higher than they were just a week earlier.
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Article: Marijuana Stocks Fall As Short Seller Says Pot Play Is ‘All Talk’

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Marijuana Stocks Fall As Short Seller Says Pot Play Is ‘All Talk’

BILL PETERS, 30 August 2018

Marijuana stocks retreated Thursday after short seller Citron Research alleged that Canadian cannabis producer Cronos Group (CRON) was “all talk” and was omitting key details about the size of its distribution agreements. The company, Citron Research alleged in a report Thursday, “appears to have been deceiving the investing public by purposely not disclosing the size of its distribution agreements with provinces — unlike every other major cannabis player.”

“Our sources have informed us that it’s because the agreements are so small they could never justify the premium investors are paying for the stock,” Citron Research said. Cronos said it could not comment on the report. The company said its advisers had done “all the necessary due diligence under both US and Canadian securities law.” In arguing its case, Citron cited an Aug. 21 news release from Cronos that announced provincial supply agreements across Canada, without any details about how big those deals were.
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Article: Cronos: The Dark Side of The Cannabis Space Target Price- $3.50

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Cronos: The Dark Side of The Cannabis Space Target Price- $3.50

Citron Research, 30 August 2018

Citron has a hot hand in cannabis lately. First Aurora ($ACB) and then in the last two weeks our trading calls played out to 70% returns. One long and one short (respectively: $TLRY and $CVSI). Citron would like to inform investors of caution on the ongoing and real green rush. Although the hype is big and the prohibition after 100 years is real, it is critical to understand that in the Canadian landscape, there are over 100 licensed producers and there will ultimately be more losers than winners.

While Canadian growers get ready for October 17 and the new age of recreational marijuana usage in Canada, Citron believes that there are a few truths that need to come to light with regards to Cronos. Cronos management appears to have been deceiving the investing public by purposely not disclosing the size of its distribution agreements with provinces – unlike every other major cannabis player
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Article: FINRA fines Interactive Brokers $5.5 million for short selling violations

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FINRA fines Interactive Brokers $5.5 million for short selling violations

Reuters Staff, 21 August 2018

(Reuters) – The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has fined a unit of Interactive Brokers Group Inc IBKR.O $5.5 million for violating several naked short selling rules over a period of at least three years.

The unit, Interactive Brokers LLC’s, supervisory system, including its written supervisory procedures, was not reasonably designed to achieve compliance with the federal requirements from July 2012 through June 2015, said FINRA.

FINRA, Wall Street’s self-regulator, also said the company repeatedly ignored “red flags,” including internal audit findings and multiple internal warnings from its staff.

The regulator said Interactive neither admitted nor denied the charges while settling the matter.

Interactive Brokers was not immediately available for comment.

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Article: South Korea exchange ups scrutiny of Merrill Lynch trading

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South Korea exchange ups scrutiny of Merrill Lynch trading

Song Jung-a, Emma Dunkley

Financial Times, 21 August 2018

South Korea’s stock exchange has stepped up its monitoring of high-frequency trading by the Seoul branch of Bank of America Merrill Lynch after local investors complained about alleged unfair stock trades by the US brokerage.

The scrutiny comes after individual local investors filed petitions to the presidential office, saying they suffered huge losses due to large, high-frequency trades and bets against South Korean stocks through the brokerage since last year.

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Article: Interactive Brokers Fined $5.5 Million for Naked Short Selling Violations

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Interactive Brokers Fined $5.5 Million for Naked Short Selling Violations

Alexander Osipovich

The Wall Street Journal, 20 August 2018

A unit of Interactive Brokers Group Inc., one of the largest U.S. retail brokerages, has been fined $5.5 million over allegations that it broke federal rules on the “naked” short selling of stocks thousands of times over a three-year period.

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Article: TILRAY: NEXT IN LINE IN A BUDDING CANNABIS INDUSTRY

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TILRAY: NEXT IN LINE IN A BUDDING CANNABIS INDUSTRY

Citron Research, 15 August 2018

On Jan 3, 2018, Citron predicted that Aurora Cannabis would fall from the then $14 to $6.50. It currently trades at $6.19.

Today we state that you would have to be ‘high’ to short any of the marijuana names based on the recent investment by Constellation in to Canopy Growth, the largest investment in the space ($4bn).The premium paid to market shows confidence by Constellation that could rattle any short seller.

The opportunity now lies in finding the next company to get a white knight at a premium to market and to Citron that answer is easy- Tilray.

Citron believes that Tilray is best in class and if it were to get the same multiple we are assigning to Canopy, the stock would be trading at $45 a share.
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Article: Tatar activist detained in Kazan, questioned in financial fraud probe

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Tatar activist detained in Kazan, questioned in financial fraud probe

RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service, 15 August 2018

A Tatar activist says he has been detained for questioning by Russian police as part of an investigation into suspected financial fraud.

Nail Nabiullin told RFE/RL by telephone that he was detained on August 15 in Kazan, the capital of Russia’s Tatarstan region, and brought to a police station.

There, Nabiullin said he was told that a person resembling him had taken out a loan of 30,800 rubles ($460) in 2017 from a local bank and failed to pay it back.

Police officers showed Nabiullin a photo of the suspect, who the activist said did not look like him at all. Continue reading “Article: Tatar activist detained in Kazan, questioned in financial fraud probe”

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Article: Fraudsters using Shopify to scam people, and critics say the company isn’t doing enough to stop them

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Fraudsters using Shopify to scam people, and critics say the company isn’t doing enough to stop them

Gerrit De Vynck and Alistair Barr, 09 August 2018

Shopify’s fight against fake users echoes similar battles being waged at Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And like those companies, Shopify is contending with the same conundrum: Is a so-called platform company responsible for the behaviour of those who use it? Shopify must police users without limiting its ability to make fistfuls of cash from them.

“We can ensure that there are fewer bad actors on our platform every single day,” says Shopify Chief Operating Officer Harley Finkelstein. “Do some sneak in from time to time? It could happen, just like it could happen on any platform.”
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