I read an article a while back...2 years or more, that said hedge fund type players who sell short, that their winning percentage was substantially better than that of those who only go long.  I wish I could find it, but no matter....its something I've accepted as a truism.  Bears ain't dumb.  

It makes sense for one main imo....The risks for a short are exponentially higher than that of a long player.  While a bull can lose no more than his or her initial investment, the potential for losses from selling short is, in theory anyway....limitless. If someone invests $100,000 in RVX, and if the stock goes to $0.00....the most that can be lost is that $100K.  A short however, dumping $100K worth of shares back into the market....so long as the margin account is kept up, the losses can, again in theory, be practically limitless....the only limit being the ability of the short to fund that margin account.  A stock can't drop below $0.00000 of course, but there's no actual ceiling on how high it can go....Imagine RVX goes to $20 and then forward splits with 1 share becoming 10, and then goes from $2 to $20 again.....this is a theoretical example of course....not a practical one.

It is because of this risk that short sellers are said to do DD on steroids, with stories of some even combing through garbage bins in hopes of getting the inside scoop.

Long winded as always growacet?  Yeppers....its who I am.

The point being...is that short sellers aren't stupid, and of course they're well capitalized....they have to be because of margin requirements.  Seeing shorts covering off, that's a HUGE positive in my eyes.....I had thought they'd added to their short positions by piling on even more....but the 600+ thousand shares that were dumped back into the market up to June 15th...almost that same number has been bought back...between $1.23 and $1.54 by my reckoning.  Sell high, buy low.  If those behind the selling had thought RVX was going to fall even more....they'd have waited to increase their profits.  But they didn't.....and based on my view that those who sell short are anything but stupid....then buying in that range imo is smart.

I believe Yeti and I share the same opinion....that the short selling wasn't the result of a truly bearish view in the larger sense, rather it was merely taking advantage of typical retail FUD to turn a quick profit....and quite possibly pick up some shares for long positions as well.  

A famous hedge fund type is Carson Black...he named his firm "Muddy Waters" based on the Chinese proverb that the fishing it best where the waters are muddy.  Mr Black's most famous short play was Sino-Forest....a company that ended up being delisted from the TSX that Mr Black said was a total fraud.....The analysts who'd been pumping Sino went bezerk...but then quietly faded away, their cash cow having been exposed.  Muddy Waters was able to make 100% profit on that short because you don't have to cover and buy back shares that have been delisted obviously.

But with RVX the shorts have been covering.....so woo hoo, but there's still 200K more that are still open as of June 30th...and there hasn't been enough volume that they all could be covered off by now.....here's hoping they'll get busy and even succomb to some FUD of their own.  

Night all....