HitHawk Research

@sharion73 @StyxCapital This is the dumbest disclaimer I've ever seen.

Over the past few months, I've noticed a trend in activist short selling. Seeing J Capital's short report earlier today - which consisted of little more than an executive summary while the full report remained behind a paywall-brought me back to a question I'd been thinking about: where is activist short selling heading? The traditional activist short-selling model has been straightforward: publish a research report as widely as possible, ideally triggering an avalanche that the target company can no longer contain—or, at the very least, a market reaction that can be monetized. Yet an increasing number of established activist researchers now release only a brief public summary while reserving the full forensic analysis for paying subscribers. If market impact is the primary objective, why deliberately limit distribution? I can think of several possible explanations: • Research becomes a monetizable asset. A forensic report creates value not only through proprietary trading, but also through subscription revenue, institutional distribution, and licensing. • The target audience has changed. In an era of direct digital distribution, reaching a relatively small network of hedge funds, family offices, and professional investors may be more valuable than maximizing retail readership. • Scarcity increases perceived value.Restricting access reinforces the notion that the research contains proprietary intelligence worth paying for, strengthening both pricing power and brand positioning. • Controlled distribution reduces friction.Publishing only an executive summary while reserving detailed allegations for subscribers may reduce unnecessary public controversy and media noise. If this trend continues, we may need to rethink how we classify activist short sellers. Perhaps the distinction is no longer simply between different investment styles, but between firms that publish to maximize market impact and firms that monetize proprietary forensic intelligence through multiple channels. Do you see this as a structural shift in the industry, or are these simply isolated business model outliers?

Must have been well-funded to survive 23 minutes. Mine was gone in five.

I always wondered how such subscription models work. Maybe I lack talent or am too perfectionistic, but I could never commit to publishing a new short report on a fixed monthly date. Real targets are rare, shy, and often disappear under close scrutiny. If subscribers expect deeply researched ideas on a fast, rigid schedule, you definitely need to be wired for this - as Edwin has proven to be. On the other hand, perhaps this new collaboration will release some of the intense pressure he has worked under for years. Wishing him all the best!

Color me skeptical that public short activism, which requires convincing a critical mass of the market you're right as the catalyst for a drop, can successfully be married to a subscription model. Both Hunterbrook and Edwin do detailed work - just doubtful on the synergies AND MAY VERY WELL BE WRONG. I'm a lawyer not a trader so take that skepticism with about a metric fuckton of salt. But I'm curious to see.

@ShmuelLon Unfortunately not Anthropic console (as OpenAi's and others') show usage per key not per IP.

@HitHawk_ Can you limit per IP?

Huge problems with Anthropic: We use the API with Bearer keys for minor analysis tasks. However, each time we fund the account, the entire funding worth 50m tokens is used up within some hours after funding. We have exchanged the API key several times already and keep it on a highly secure host that has not been compromised. Still, it happens. The only explanation we have is that the keys are stolen from the Anthropic infrastructure, with or without their knowledge. Anyone experiencing similar issues?

To solve this, Black Styx relies on proprietary exit assessment algorithms. This system is a core linchpin of our platform. By establishing a neutral and metric, it allows for a fair comparison of campaign performances between different short activists and Cassandras. 📊👇 2/3

Don't get Left behind without candy in an LA courtroom. 🍭

@Gabe_Bernarde @viceroyresearch Because these are real shorts, their momentum can’t be contained. They don’t know what hit them. 🍿

We have done "this" many times before. @viceroyresearch $ABXX.TO

Take a look and enjoy - real short selling will prevail.

And right after lunch. Thanks a lot.

I do not share the view that the verdict against Andrew Left represents a fundamental turning point for activist short selling. If anything, it may ultimately make the industry better and more disciplined. My reasoning is straightforward. Investigative short selling is, by definition, a long-term exercise. Whether the focus is fraud, deception, aggressive accounting, or an unsustainable business model, the thesis is built on the belief that reality will eventually surface. If the research is correct, public disclosure merely starts a process that becomes increasingly difficult for the company to stop. In some cases the consequences materialize quickly; in others, structural weaknesses may take weeks or even months to become apparent. What I am not aware of is any company collapsing within minutes or hours of a report being published. What I am aware of are substantial profits being generated before publication, often when information begins circulating ahead of the report itself. In some cases, the price action appears to peak at publication and reverse thereafter, which broadly aligns with the allegations made against Left. Like every experienced short seller, I have seen trades move sharply against me. Sound risk management forces you to exit when your thesis proves wrong. That is fundamentally different, however, from building a strategy around creating a sharp selloff and covering the position minutes after publication. Once short-term trading profits become the primary objective, the report itself and its underlying allegations become secondary. At that point, the activity begins to resemble a brand monetization exercise rather than activist short selling. In fact, I think it undermines the latter. It is a strategy that may generate profits for a while, but gradually erodes the credibility on which activist short sellers ultimately depend.

Don't miss out on investment opportunities! The Styx platform has got you covered, no matter if the campaign happens across the ocean... @ResearchGrizzly

@NMPCap Right - and even if you got them for free, they are only valuable when you build meaningful stationary feature vectors from them. Ideally novel ones, not those already used. AI won’t do this for you.

The Andrew Left guilty verdict is a painful reminder that as short sellers we are all 2nd class citizens But we still think there's a stark difference among short-sellers. There are the ones that believe their own work & stay short the shit-cos for the long-haul. A short story about the founding of Fuzzy Panda Research: We actually engaged with activists like Left early in our short-selling career (~10-15 years ago). It both felt icky and was incredibly frustrating. We kept asking ourselves the same questions: - Why give away months/years of our work to some random guy? - Especially if they will cover their position day 1 & won't be around to fight the long fight? Even worse they would often mess up the short thesis because they hadn't done the work and didn't understand the details. One of the worst/weirdest interactions we had was back in the Summer of 2017 when we attempted to help Andrew Left on a short idea. We'd spent months working all summer long sending Andrew lots of details on an auto company that we believed used predatory financing to steal from consumers. It was disgusting how the company would use usurious fees to entrap poor people in a cycle of poverty. This company somehow had even repo'ed a car when there was still a baby in the back seat. But at the end of summer 2017, Left called me: "It's time. I'm finally publishing on what we've been working. It's happening this week!"~Left (I thought, thank god, finally! But then the next words immediately shocked me): "We are finally going to expose Ubiquiti" ~Left "Wtf!?" ~Me "What?! i thought you'd be excited?" ~Left "Andrew! I'm not working on Ubiquiti with you." ~Me "uh, umm. Well......I'm doing Ubiquiti this week, we will do the other one next week." ~Left (Note-Ubiquiti Inc is tech co that makes wireless enterprise communication products...it's not at all related to predatory auto financing. Also for some plainly obvious reasons I decided to stop speaking to Andrew about investment ideas right after that) Crappy interactions like that ultimately led me to ask one of my advisors from business school, the late Jack McDonald, his thoughts. At the time we were talking about a different fraud that was going through a painful short squeeze (a Chinese bank that had a fake HQ in NYC & was pretending to be an American Co. It had even tricked the FTSE-Russell into adding them into the Russell 2000) Professor McDonald was an investing legend. He was close friends with all my own investing heros: Andreas Halvorsen (from Viking), Jim Coulter, the SPO founders, and even Charlie Munger & Warren Buffett. But more importantly Jack was not only a great investor but he was a great human. All advise from Jack was gold and the advise he gave that day about this Chinese fraud changed the course of my career... "Don't be afraid to use your own voice. You have freedom of speech too. The information you found is amazing. Everyone has to know about it. ~Jack Then Jack gave me a wink & a smile and said "Let's expose these guys" So that is how Fuzzy Panda Research was born Why a Fuzzy Panda? Because it is a completely ridiculous name. For anyone to believe a Fuzzy Panda the research must be damn good. It is also hilarious when a management team puts out a press release saying that "an evil fuzzy panda is out to get them." Plus early on it was a solid bonus that the anonymity was like a warm security blanket, it protected our identities just in case this whole fuzzy panda thing didn't work out and we all needed to get real jobs at a hedge funds later. So how do we think the Andrew Left verdict affects activist short-sellers? - For some (that like to smash & grab or flip out of a position day one) it's a complete game changer - For others, like us, probably nothing But we are a different breed short-seller. The degenerate short-seller! The one that truly believes their our own work & will fight through short squeezes. (Tag your favorite degenerate short-seller below)

@FuzzyPandaShort The comments speak for themselves. Well done, chapeau!

styx.capital is an intelligence and analytics platform built for traders and investors focused on the short side of the market. Some market participants seek to capitalize on immediate price dislocations following the publication of a report. Others conduct deeper due diligence to evaluate long-term opportunities, while some follow specific activist firms whose strategies, sector focus, regional expertise, communication style, or historical track record align with their investment approach. Black Styx was designed to support all of these use cases by bringing relevant intelligence and analytics together in a single platform.

Following a Short Thesis aligns Intentions from the Outset: Expose Fraud, Trigger Market Efficiency, Protect Capital. Black Styx enjoys pure Independence from Institutional Markets. Our Short Intelligence is free from Conflict of Interest. styx.capital

Our analysis says there still seems to be some potential and opportunity left in this one... Exciting enough given yesterday's earnings but also the resulting stock performance... This seems to have been published just in time @CulperResearch @NVDA