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Comment by Moodles | Hacker News Reader

A better question is: If Melvin made a huge short position and is now finally out of it, why would they bother telling everyone? ;-)

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Maybe so investors can evaluate the current status of their hedge fund without thinking there is some massive looming instability about to hit them?

Or, maybe they're lying to discourage more calls? In any case, their best strategy is to claim they're out of the short position so really them saying so is useless information.

What's not useless information is that they simply didn't have the AUM to survive GME going from $100 to $300. They either got out when they said they did, or they're gone.

> Or, maybe they're lying to discourage more calls?

Is this something they are legally allowed to lie about?

If it is not, is this the sort of thing they can lie about anyway because unless an insider blabs no one would know, or is it one of those things that someone would be able to figure out from required SEC filing or other public records?

Shorts are not required to be disclosed on their 13-F filings (which they must file quarterly to report long positions).

I know it's not illegal, but how is being that big and lying, not market manipulation?

What is market manipulation? Apparently, anything not covered by the VAR models of the big banks.

So investors in Melvin won’t abandon them. They want to reassure their own investors that the damage is done and they’re out.

In that case they could most definitely inform their investors directly and there's absolutely no need to make a public statement about it.

They could, but it's common (and not suspicious) for an investor involved in a public fracas to publicly reveal they've exited their position. Bill Ackman did something similar with Herbalife: https://www.investopedia.com/news/billionaire-bill-ackman-du...

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