Global investment banks (IB) Goldman Sachs and Credit Switzerland (CS) have largely liquidated the short selling positions of Celltrion and HLB.
According to the Korea Exchange on the 7th, Goldman Sachs and CS were excluded from the bulk holders of Celltrion and HLB, respectively, on the 1st. A large short sale holder means an investor who has a short sale balance of 0.5% or more of the total number of listed stocks in the relevant stock.
It has been about three years since January 25, 2018 that Goldman Sachs was excluded from the bulk holder of the short selling of Celltrion. In addition, it was only about 1 year and 9 months after April 24, 2019 that CS was excluded from the HLB short sale mass holder.
As Goldman Sachs and CS were excluded from the short-selling mass holders, the number of Celltrion short-selling mass holders decreased to two: Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. The bulk holders of HLB’s short sale declined to Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup Global Market Securities.
As they cleared the short selling positions of the two stocks, the short selling balance of the two stocks and the proportion of the short selling balance to the market cap also decreased significantly. Short selling balance refers to the amount of short selling or waiting for short selling.
On the 1st, Celltrion’s short selling balance amounted to 492,3666 shares, a sharp drop of 1 million shares from the previous day. As a result, the proportion of short selling balances to market capitalization fell to 3.65%. On the same day, HLB’s short sale balance also decreased by 520,000 shares compared to the previous day (3,330,305 shares) to 2,77,6113 shares. The ratio of short selling to market cap fell from 6.22% to 5.24%. The next day, the 2nd, it fell to 4.99%.
It is analyzed that the’Korean version of the game stop movement’ may have had an effect on the liquidation of their short selling positions.
The Korea Equity Investors Association (Han Tu-yeon), where individual investors gathered, centered on Celltrion and HLB, which had a large short selling balance on the 1st, “Following the method of US Gamestop shareholders against short selling, we launched an anti-short selling campaign in Korea. I will.”