I haven’t done the work on Triterras personally, but I have no doubt that Justin’s analysis is correct, given his more than two-decades-long track record doing long-short investing in the financial-services sector. Local officials have struggled to set up phone and online sign-up systems. So, of course, Left wasn't happy. The U.S. death toll, already the highest in the world by a wide margin, is soaring toward 400,000 – only one month after the country crossed the 300,000 threshold. 15. Triterras went public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (“SPAC”) in November and currently sports a nearly $1 billion market cap. The Trump administration originally said that 20 million Americans would be vaccinated by Jan. 1. StockLemon.com was started in 2001 as a self publishing blog that hosts reports regarding controversial companies. Tilson graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in government in 1989. When Citron issues a report, the stock drops. Follow CITRON on Twitter Tweets by @citronresearch Recent Reports. Of course, the company responded with threats: (Former GACR CEO) Mr. (Fred) Luke went on to say that recent criticism by a financial writer who represents to be closely following this newly developing Electric Vehicle industry, appears to me to be doing the subject matter and his readers a great disservice by not conducting any real due diligence, and therefore lacks the facts to substantiate his negative editorial comments ... ... For that matter this reporter could be collaborating with some of the short-sellers. And, really, the specifics of these individual situations -- PLUG, GACR and SCEI -- don't matter much. It was the fifth year Muddy Waters’ hedge fund posted a double-digit gain, which launched in 2016 and has managed such performance during one of the longest bull markets on record. 3 days ago. © 2021 TheStreet, Inc. All rights reserved. We are proud of the years of work we put into that name. It was a beautiful day, the site was well organized (with 150 National Guard troops), the staff were very helpful and knowledgeable, the parking was easy, and the shot didn’t hurt at all. I also questioned the company's claims about its business and the unscrupulous ways it went about trying to sell its stock to unsuspecting investors. In 2007, the website was rebranded to Citron-Research. The highlight of the year for Citron concerned a company we were not even short – The Bankruptcy of Mallinckrodt. --Written by Rocco Pendola in Santa Monica, Calif. Disclosure: TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits staff editors, reporters and analysts from holding positions in any individual stocks. Andrew Left track record Looking at Citron’s track record, Barron reports that, on average, companies that Left writes about see their value drop by ten per cent in a year. While I have no opinion on PLUG or the veracity of Citron's research, ... out facts surrounding Left's history and Citron's track record. Our largest contributor on the short side was Inovio, which became a multi-billion-dollar company despite using the exact same deceptive playbook (verbatim) that it has used for five high profile viruses over the past 10 years. Worthy to do in my opinion. Personally, I want to get back to doing the type of work outlined in this article. I'll let the regulators the Company's attorneys pursue this as we have other, more important things to deal with related to the timely launch of the company's All-Electric SUV late this year?. I can only speak for New York, but I know six people who got the first dose of the vaccine this week: a friend’s parents on Sunday, my in-laws on Wednesday, and a friend and his wife yesterday. And, while the situations aren't necessarily analogous, they speak to one another in real ways. If you live in or near NYC, my wife used this website to set up the appointments (you can also try this one). All rights reserved. Whenever possible, Pendola uses hockey, Springsteen or Southern California references in his work. The members of FCAI’s Scientific Advisory Board 2020. Luckily, I was diversified in electric vehicle-related stocks at the time, so things turned out alright. 4) A hat tip as well to another activist short-selling friend, Carson Block of Muddy Waters, who was up 15% in a brutal year for short sellers according to this Institutional Investor article: In Tough Year for Short Sellers, Muddy Waters Pulls Off Big Gains. By Tom Bemis. After college, he helped Wendy Kopp launch Teach for America and then spent two years as a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. As promised in 2019, we stayed away from story stocks and were not short Tesla or any of the high short interest story names that became detached from any underlying financial metrics. I learned -- the hard way -- to just stay away from the battleground and, if a group like Citron was involved, ignore the situation completely. He’s not predicting when that will happen, though. 2) Justin Hughes of hedge fund Phase 2 Partners just released a bearish report on blockchain trade finance company Triterras: Is Triterras (TRIT) the Wirecard of Blockchain? agreement and any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world But even as most short sellers gasped for life, Muddy Waters ended the year up a net 15%, according to an investor. Additionally, they provide the lesson that we should not only scrutinize third-party research groups that take short (and, as Weinstein noted, sometimes long) positions, but we should scrutinize companies themselves. This would put the company … 3) Speaking of activist short-sellers with great long-term records, congratulations to my friend Andrew Left of Citron Research, whose insightful reports I've highlighted many times in my daily e-mails. He lives in Santa Monica. Prior to creating Empire Financial Research, Whitney Tilson founded and ran Kase Capital Management, which managed three value-oriented hedge funds and two mutual funds. In fairness, other than a few small countries like Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates, we’re actually doing well so far in terms of vaccinations per capita, as you can see in this chart from Our World in Data: That said, we’re only in the first inning… so we all need to work together to get the maximum number of shots in arms fast. Dec 3, 2020 12:35PM Deep Knowledge Analytics Publish a Report Dismantling Allegations Against Nanox Dec 2, 2020 01:58PM 1,339 total articles have been posted to this entity. We need to protect our most vulnerable citizens and get to herd immunity as quickly as possible because we are facing a “nightmare scenario.” Here is a summary of the situation from Wednesday’s New York Times Coronavirus Briefing newsletter: As Americans focus their attention on the fallout from the Capitol siege and the debate over another presidential impeachment, the pandemic is reaching what only a few months ago was considered a nightmare scenario. While I have no opinion on PLUG or the veracity of Citron's research, I do believe we need more people like Weinstein calling out people like Left, holding them accountable and making them answer the difficult questions. 5) If you or a loved one qualifies to get vaccinated for COVID-19, it’s critical that this happens immediately. While Citron prides itself on understanding market conditions, I did not realize how prophetic this investment directive would become. I first met him when he spoke at my shorting conference in May 2018, where he pitched online trading platform Plus500 (PLUS.L), which subsequently declined by 66%. I know this because back in my trading and investing days (TheStreet's editorial policy prohibits me, a full-time employee, from holding positions in individual stocks other than TheStreet (TST) - Get Report), I got burned one too many times chasing any and all of the above. Andrew became active in short-selling while aged 24 years. Emotion took over, clouded my better sense and cost me. It's not unusual for the market to quickly brush off a negative Citron Research report and continue higher. When you think about it, why does the financial media even exist if it's hesitant -- for one reason or the other -- to be in the business of raising red flags? We cannot remove emotion -- and the damaging investor psychology it can create -- from the equation, so we have no business wading in risky territory. Prominent activist investors post record 2020 returns despite pandemic ... who has targeted companies he thinks are over-valued through his work at Citron Research, ... Stay focused and on track. He earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1994, where he graduated in the top 5% of his class and was named a Baker Scholar. I have no position on or inPlug Power (PLUG) - Get Report; however, Weinstein's article resonated with me, primarily because it raised red flags investors need to consider with respect to every stock they buy or sell short. Citron Capital, the new hedge fund led by Andrew Left, had a solid first year. Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi, University of Milan, Italy. . 3) Speaking of activist short-sellers with great long-term records, congratulations to my friend Andrew Left of Citron Research, whose insightful reports I’ve highlighted many times in my daily e-mails. SAB summarizes that FCAI is a carefully designed and flawlessly implemented research center, with a double mission of achieving results in fundamental research and having an impact on applications. Why else publish something which is full of negative mis-statements and a painfully incomplete analysis of all of the publicly-accessible news and other publicly-accessible facts, unless you really didn't care about doing a good job maintaining balance. Multiple candidates were developed in record time, and if given out quickly, could rein in the pandemic and save thousands of lives. wide web), in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Empire © 2021 Empire Financial Research. While the NYT says, “the rollout has been slow,” that’s only relative to the Trump administration’s initial promises, which were overly optimistic. This data couldn't be more material to the situation surrounding PLUG, a situation triggered by Citron itself. The network apparently decided it was reasonable to allow Left to state his case without another guest challenging his claims. Protected by copyright laws I mean these guys are among the most sophisticated players in the market in terms of understanding the technicals,” he said. With over 150 reports, Citron has amassed a track record identifying fraud and terminal business models second to none among any published source. In Tough Year for Short Sellers, Muddy Waters Pulls Off Big Gains, the rollout has been slow, and riddled with challenges, The Maddening Red Tape Facing Older People Who Want the Vaccine. (YHOO) Finance: And it seems the Chairman and CEO of Sino, Baowen Ren, who I wrote about in 2011, found himself in hot water late in 2013: During the last three years and under his leadership, Management destroyed 98% of its shareholder value as the equity market value of the Company plunged from over $160 million to a current $4 million. Citron's Andrew Left Says Amazon Was a 'Safe Bet' in 2020 5 January 2021, 4:42 pm Jan.05 -- Citron Research Founder Andrew Left discusses his top stock picks of 2020, and his big bet on Amazon. Though I have lost track of the situation since, I do know that Sino Clean Energy, at the very least, commenced legal proceedings against Seeking Alpha and a contributor, Alfred Little, who picked up the SCEI story shortly after my article and did some of the best investigative work I had, at the time, ever seen. From the beginning, the country’s coronavirus strategy relied heavily on quickly making a vaccine. No side effects as of five hours later, and none expected. In a tweet, noted short seller Citron Research reiterates its bearish view on Inovio Pharmaceuticals (INO +14.4%), a favorite among Robinhood traders. “Things are really different now. The financial media needs to raise red flags -- on PLUG, on Citron, on everything -- more often. Citron Research has been publishing columns for over 17 years, making it one of the longest-running online stock commentary websites. It prompted me to recall two similar situations I injected myself into back in my Seeking Alpha days. This practice was boosted by boiler room scams which eventually went … 1) I did a 40-minute interview recently with Siddharth Singhai, CIO of IronHold Capital, for his Leaders in Business and Investing podcast. This year, the strategy had lost 47.59% through November, according to the HFRX Equity Hedge: Short Bias Index. Only a few short months ago, Citron Research claimed Village Farms International (VFF) was a fraud. In May of 2011 at Seeking Alpha, I wrote a pair of articles raising questions about a company called Green Automotive (GACR) . Rocco Pendola is a columnist for. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- TheStreet's Robert Weinstein produced some of his best work ever Wednesday afternoon in Don't Let Citron Research Sour You on Plug Power. Yesterday’s death count – at least 4,406 people – set another daily record, and represents at least 1,597 more people than those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. ... Q1 2020 hedge fund letters, conferences and more. “Ten years ago, when I began doing this, the Chinese guys were really unsophisticated in the market,” he recalled. Here’s more from Institutional Investor: GSX’s ability to fight off short sellers is a new pattern in Chinese stocks, said Block. 2020 Track Record: Covid-19, Shortest Recession, Global Recovery While the outlook for growth and inflation at the start of 2020 was positive, cascading closures due to … Citron Research has been publishing columns for over 11 years, making it one of the longest-running online stock commentary websites. Andrew is the leading investigator, founder of Citron-Researchand renowned full time short-selling professional and editor. In May 2019, Citron Research, one of the longest-running online stock commentary websites with a track record of identifying fraud and terminal business models, published a damning report on Jumia Technologies, a Berlin-based e-commerce company operating in Africa. ... Best Rideshare Week Since March 2020. Don’t delay – slots are filling up fast! ... Based on its track record around other Phase 1 clinical trials for other infectious diseases, Citron expects the company to announce positive data from the Phase 1 trial. It’s been unsuccessful so far, but Carson hasn’t changed his view. (If you have doubts, watch this video by NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway, which I included as item No. Here's a look at the GACR chart, from May 2011 to intraday trading Wednesday afternoon: At the time, I lost money on another penny stock. GameStop is on track for its best ... short seller Citron Research said it would hold a live stream to ... Investors Funneled $166 Billion into Chinese Bond Markets in 2020. I know this from firsthand experience. He released his 2020 annual letter last week, in which he disclosed that his Citron Capital fund was up a remarkable 202% gross and 155% net. Established Track Record. “With over 150 reports, Citron has amassed a track record identifying fraud and terminal business models second to none among any published source,” claims the website. Citron Research is targeting another company. Excerpt: One year ago, in the Citron Capital 2019 annual letter, we noted that Citron would never opine on the state of the market or specific asset classes as we understood our role as reacting to market conditions rather than predicting them. Start watching at 1:07:57.). I've been there before. Both provide valuable lessons on not filtering out red flags, particularly as you're entering emotional territory on the volatile stock of the day. Posted by 3 years ago. It’s really just one guy with a blog and a lengthy track record of lawsuits for baselessly attacking stocks in an attempt to profit off their downfall. He released his 2020 annual letter last week, in which he disclosed that his Citron Capital fund was up a remarkable 202% gross and 155% net. In the absence of Mr. Ren presenting a credible plan to restore and maximize value for all shareholders, the shareholders who are part of the Schedule 13D filing Group that I represent request the Board to terminate Mr Ren's employment with the Company immediately owing to this totally unacceptable performance. P.S. That was a new record. After receiving the shot, my friend wrote last night: Thanks to your push, my wife and I braved the needle today and got our first dose of the Pfizer vaccine. 3 in my January 8 e-mail. It took me two hours to register and get an appointment, but we were in and out of the Javits Center in only an hour. One I was sure was going to do well. Muddy Waters’ returns far outdo those of most short-biased hedge funds. If I may say so myself, it's some of my best work. In it, we discussed my forthcoming book, The Art of Playing Defense, current events, rational investing, and what it means to be a defensive investor. “But we hope to make it back when it collapses,” Block added. In a market whose movement has become increasingly more dependent on psychology and less about business, we maintain our focus on not predicting economic, political, or scientific events; rather we focus on how to capitalize on investors’ reactions to these events…. With over 150 reports, Citron has amassed a track record identifying fraud and terminal business models second to none among any published source. Left is well-known for Citron Research, a stock commentary website that has been operational for over 17 years. After Muddy Waters put out a short on a Chinese company, “they would just be like deer in the headlights getting run over.”. Citron Research has been publishing columns for over 10 years, making it one of the longest-running online stock commentary websites. There's no doubt Citron has a strong track record in the past, ... the sell report on NIO needs to be addressed given the stock price volatility and because "the author cites the bank's research but provides an incomplete picture of our view." As our readers know, Mallinckrodt was the personification of the worst corporate America has to offer. Weinstein published information -- that's available to any investor if they know where and take the time to look -- that lays out facts surrounding Left's history and Citron's track record. ... (November 13, 2020) And look at Tesla's market cap: $387.2 billion (November 13, 2020) Citron said that "unless Peloton invents a piece of equipment that works out for you" the stock is going to $5 in 2020. Our 2020 short book can be highlighted more not by what we were short, but rather what we were NOT short. GameStop has benefited from the stay-at-home orders put in place during the pandemic—since more people are playing videogames to keep themselves entertained at home. With over 150 reports, Citron has amassed a track record identifying fraud and terminal business models second to none among any published source. Many of the oldest Americans, who are most vulnerable to the disease, are encountering byzantine online registration sites, error messages, and crashing servers. Receive full access to our market insights, commentary, newsletters, breaking news alerts, and more. And, if you're dealing in smaller names, thinly-traded equities, penny stocks or battleground stocks, you need to not only consider red flags, but seek them out. Excerpt: One year ago, in the Citron Capital 2019 annual letter, we noted that Citron would never opine on the state of the market or specific asset classes as we understood our role as reacting to market conditions rather than predicting them. Javits has capacity for thousands of people a day, but so far they’re only doing hundreds. For some of us, it's not possible to effectively check ourselves. Action Alerts PLUS is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. Don't Let Citron Research Sour You on Plug Power. You can listen to it here or watch the video of it here. In the month prior, I raised red flags about bookkeeping and related matters at another company, Sino Clean Energy (SCEI) . So far Muddy Waters has lost money on its GSX short. Financial Research. I'm not sure what, if anything, came of that. Each month in the Empire Investment Report, Whitney Tilson and his team share their top investment recommendations, ideas, predictions, and warnings – in short, everything you need to know to beat the markets in the coming years. Much like Weinstein's efforts with respect to PLUG, I called out individuals with iffy, at best, track records. I’ve written – most recently on December 9 – about Carson’s campaign against Chinese online-education provider GSX Techedu (GSX). Citron Research has a track record of being right (according to wsj) Close. They are predicting MAJOR demand and sell outs, so if you qualify I’d go sooner than later. After the federal government yesterday abruptly reversed course and cleared vaccinations for people over 65 and adults with certain medical conditions, states have been scrambling to meet a surge in demand for doses. Famous short seller Citron Research is known for issuing harsh commentary and low price targets. Starting out of his bedroom with only $1 million, Tilson grew assets under management to nearly $200 million. Appointments are snatched up as soon as they become available, and some in the highest priority group have only managed to book their shots weeks from now. The fund has produced an annualized return of roughly 19% – and that’s after a 2.5% management fee and a 30% performance fee. He released his 2020 annual letter last week, in which he disclosed that his Citron Capital fund was up a remarkable 202% gross and 155% net. Left's angry response, which, as I understand it, came with the typical attendant threats doesn't surprise me. You have to scrutinize your original conviction -- what you think you know -- to the point where you aggressively take the other side.