Netflix Short Was Hedge-Fund Manager Tilson's Biggest 2010 Loser

Netflix Short Was Hedge-Fund Manager Tilson's Biggest 2010 Loser
By Kelly Bit - Jan 6, 2011 2:29 PM ET

T2 Partners' Whitney Tilson

Whitney Tilson, managing partner of T2 Parnters LLC. Photographer: Jin Lee/Bloomberg

Whitney Tilson, co-founder of hedge fund T2 Partners LLC, said Netflix Inc. was his biggest loser in 2010, less than a month after the movie-rental company’s chief executive officer publicly asked him to stop betting against it.

T2 Partners, based in New York, incurred “significant losses” in its short portfolio for the second year in a row, according to a Jan. 4 annual letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg News. Tilson indicated he would stick with the holding even though it’s been a money loser.

“We are not yet conceding that we’ve made a mistake in our analysis, but we obviously made a mistake in terms of timing our entry into the position,” Tilson wrote. “We think highly of Netflix, just not its valuation.”

Netflix’s stock more than tripled in price last year. Its short interest -- the number of shares borrowed and sold in anticipation of lower prices -- peaked in April 2008 and has dropped by more than half since then. Short interest in the Los Gatos, California-based company was 10.2 million shares in mid- December, down from 23.2 million at its highest point.

“It is possible that one could make money shorting Netflix today,” CEO Reed Hastings, whose movie-rental company has moved to online delivery from DVDs, wrote in a Dec. 20 posting on the Seeking Alpha investing website. “But shorting a market-leading firm as it is driving a huge new market is a very gutsy call.”

Netflix reached a closing high of $205.90 on Nov. 30. The company fell $1.12 to $178.61 at 2:19 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq trading.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-...fund-manager-tilson-s-biggest-2010-loser.html

 

the guy is 'professional' and shorts netflix.

you don't short on fundamentals on illiquid pump and dump stocks

only the market makers or investment bank doing the netflix ipo does the shorting. these guys like goldman sachs never have to cover

wall street is scam okay the big money is pushing stocks like netflix and doing facebook ipos and inflated price to moron clients not in a high risk trading and daytrading crap competing with algorithsm and hft machiens fighting for crumbs in the trading floor.

 

What a dolt. Can't believe he actually manages money.

 

the guy could be part of the scam to embezzle money...lose money on the short side...on purpose..

lose client money on bad trade..oh sure.

 

this is a case in point example how one goes broke because they cannot accept the fact that they were wrong. he was early,the timing is a bit off,he's still continuing with his theseis; bla bla bla. the guy i a fuckin idiot and he should know better. he's fucked !!!!! i did that with QLGC back in the day when that stock was a big mover.

 

That's actually something I've never thought of, nice.

 

lots of et'ers embezzle their wifes money every day.

 

ETLeaks....better than Wikileaks..

 

Stoploss much Tilson?

 

a Nflx short will work out in due course, junior just shorted too early.