Stock Market: Knives Are Out For Joby

Dear oh dear, Joby has been tak­ing a ham­mer­ing on the Stock Mar­ket in recent weeks as mar­ket short­ers seek out new com­pa­nies to mar­malise.

Joby’s share price is down over 33 per­cent in the last month alone on the back of cer­tain ruth­less busi­ness media out­lets com­bin­ing attacks and ques­tion­ing the claims of the eVTOL indus­try mov­ing for­ward.

We have seen this time and time again, whether it was Wolf­pack Research’s onslaught with EHang or Ice­berg Research on Lil­i­um. Usu­al­ly vul­ner­a­ble com­pa­nies are sought, so choos­ing Joby is a sur­prise, giv­en the com­pa­ny is one of the strongest in the emerg­ing eVTOL indus­try. Per­haps, because it is the leader and mov­ing ever clos­er to full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, this hap­pens to be its vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty? It is of no sur­prise that com­pa­nies like Volo­copter and Aut­oFlight, for exam­ple, wish to remain pri­vate.

JoeBen Bevirt must won­der what has hit his com­pa­ny. What has he done wrong? Absolute­ly noth­ing. Attack­ing a com­pa­ny by using fear and uncer­tain­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the present eco­nom­ic tur­bu­lent times, isn’t dif­fi­cult. Short­ers require the sup­port of the media and when the two com­bine, the tar­get­ed com­pa­ny must be pre­pared for a rocky ride.

For Joby, its pri­ma­ry antag­o­nist is Bleeck­er Street Research. The all-impor­tant and damn­ing head­line is an inte­gral part of the vio­la­tion. In the case of Bleek­er, it is “Joby Avi­a­tion (JOBY): Uber Meets Tes­la In The Sky Is Set To Crash And Burn.”

Those pow­er­ful words “Crash and Burn” were also used for EHang and Lil­i­um, so it is a bog stan­dard phrase employed to instil the great­est harm. Such writ­ten attacks are so bla­tant, the attempt­ed manip­u­la­tion so cyn­i­cal and shame­less, yet time and time again, it becomes the trig­ger for short­ers to attack in uni­son and pur­pose­ful­ly dri­ve a share price down.

Per­haps, being vio­lat­ed in this way is a badge of hon­our for the eVTOL indus­try. That Joby is tak­ing one for the team?

For new and emerg­ing indus­tries are always open to attack. They are easy meat for short­ers as future claims can­not be backed up by actu­al proof. Bleek­er goes all in using every con­ceiv­able crit­i­cism sup­port­ed by graphs, fig­ures and even for­mer Joby state­ments. No stone is unturned. This is a ruth­less, unyield­ing and high­ly aggres­sive vio­la­tion.

Of course, for the Research Com­pa­ny, it can then cow­ard­ly hide behind its dis­claimer at the end, “Research is not invest­ment advice nor a rec­om­men­da­tion or solic­i­ta­tion to buy secu­ri­ties…” And even has the brazen face to state, “We are short shares of Joby.” Before empha­sis­ing again, “Please read the full dis­claimer at the end of this arti­cle.” 

JoeBen — Ruing The Day He Took Joby Pub­lic?

For the short­er, who cares?! Who reads the small print and any­way, these hye­nas are not buy­ing the shares, but buy­ing puts, an option to sell instead.

All cred­it to Bleek­er, as its report is well con­ceived and put togeth­er. In fact, so art­ful­ly per­sua­sive, that suasnews.com, an alleged sup­port­er of the eVTOL indus­try, even writes on its site at the top of the press release, “This is a very com­pelling report.” Wow!

If you are a Joby investor and feel brave enough, the report is below. Just make sure you have a stiff drink pre­pared, first. And after­wards when the dust set­tles, take it all with a pinch of salt and recog­nise the Machi­avel­lian garbage and intent that lies behind “the research”.

For an excel­lent rebuke read Bruce Crum­ley’s arti­cle from dronedj.com last Thurs­day.

Bleeck­er Street Research – Joby Avi­a­tion (JOBY): “Uber Meets Tes­la In The Sky” Is Set To Crash And Burn