Saturday, August 29, 2026

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@BrokenMoats

Broken Moats on X

$RBLX no victory laps I gave up my short a long time ago. Felt the stock was manipulated by insiders to gas monetization and trends with smash and grab tactics like grow a garden drops, etc. That policy that drove the stock higher is also their undoing as the comp trends reverse and monetization declines. But the real undoing here is that he company, and I solely would call out the CEO who has majority voting power, that it is their lack of seriousness around safety that is undoing their platform and could ultimately completely unravel their business. Most parents I talk to won't let their kids play on Roblox even if they had in in years past. They are more comfortable giving them a switch to fulfill any gaming time because of the lack of safety concerns. David had a concept and it took off, got scale, built a genuine niche marketplace and network and he continues to squander that opportunity with poor operating efficiency (see costs), awful capital allocation, and some of the worst governance of any company over a $1B I have seen by dismissing the open problems on his platform, then only after issues are very public making half attempts to put in safety controls like age verification that he touts on Bloomberg interviews the day of. Its a shame the CEO has voting control, because if you could remove him their could be potential here at current prices based of the network, cash flow and the ability to dramatically improve monetization with advertising and brand partnerships over time. But you would need a big public campaign directed at parents on Bloomberg that the company is serious on safety and protections and will clean up their user account issues, and get serious on capital allocation (one buying shares to cover dilution regardless of share price is garbage policy - have conviction, buy when its attractive, and stay out when its not). @BillAckman said he was psychologically short after he walked from Herbalife, not the same as making money alongside your conviction but the best shorts are often complicated to fully execute on. But few public companies that feel more satisfaction in going down then Roblox due to their management team and disregard for their users safety
@RagingVentures

Raging Capital Ventures on X

Some thoughts of mine on Archegos from May 2021 (below). Was Leopold using swaps? The value of Situational’s reported Q1 13F holdings pale in comparison to some of the exposure numbers being mentioned today, even adjusting for appreciation. I would observe that once Archegos blew up at the end of March 2021, many previously impossible shorts (names like $TDOC and $TRUP come to mind) became much easier to navigate and ultimately collapsed… ****** PEELING BACK THE ARCHEGOS ONION The implosion of Archegos is a very important market development and I hope regulators peel back the onion to truly understand what occurred. Archegos owned massive swap positions in companies like ViacomCBS (VIAC), Discovery Communications (DISCA), Tencent Music (TME), and GSX Techedu (GSX), in some cases controlling 20-50% of their tradeable float. Swap ISDA agreements typically limit aggregate ownership in a single company to 4-9%. Archegos appears to have aggressively violated these limits and/or the prime brokers looked the other way, enabling the firm to corner numerous large stocks in the U.S. equity markets. Notably, Archegos owned perhaps 50% of the float of a reputed fraud, GSX. How long has Archegos’ Bill Hwang been cornering stocks like this? He is rumored to have turned $200 mm into $5 b over the past six years (and may have briefly tripled that amount to $15 b during early 2021). What other short squeezes did he orchestrate in recent years? Are other funds using similar strategies as Archegos, and were there wolf packs of funds that Archegos was communicating with on these squeezes? My hunch is that Hwang and his ilk have been cornering stocks for years, with the typical exit plan being the sale of his positions to passive indexes who are perversely designed to buy more of a stock the higher the price goes. This underscores a major issue with passive investing. Archegos’ machinations also created tremendous pain for short selling hedge funds, which provide a valuable ballast for the entire stock market. Furthermore, if you peel back the onion enough, I think you will find an Archegos (or a similar fund) connection to Tesla (TSLA), which was squeezed multiple times until it was added to the S&P 500. Is it possible that Elon Musk, who regularly attacked the shorts, and who in 2018 was making unusual pre-market trades in his own stock at prices well above the prevailing market price, was somehow connected to this action?

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Jumia

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