Sure I don't have some gotcha smoking gun that links some third string financial columnist to a hedge funds actions, but if I did I wouldn't be blabbering about it here. I'd report it up SEC, retain a lawyer and collect my reward.
A quick skim of the article suggests that they're doing it to make their own funds look better, rather than as some sort of pump&dump scheme that you suggest.
>Hedge funds routinely refuse to disclose their abnormal holdings and sell to realize profits.
the first paragraph of the introduction says why they're confidential in the first place: to avoid getting front-runned and to avoid free-riding. I don't see anything nefarious here, unless they're also simultaneously deceiving people into investing.
>First information is widely distributed to make investors wonder about the company and to put fear into those longs that hold the stock. Next, high volume shorting takes place to drive the company's share price down.
Again, there's nothing wrong with holding a position in a company and spreading news about it, as long as your holdings are disclosed. Short-sellers do this all the time when they publish short reports.
https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/research/cfa-digest/2013/11/...
Hedge funds routinely refuse to disclose their abnormal holdings and sell to realize profits.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43303849?seq=1
Former manager Jim Cramer admits as much:
https://seekingalpha.com/instablog/2918951-g-hudson/1026551-...
Sure I don't have some gotcha smoking gun that links some third string financial columnist to a hedge funds actions, but if I did I wouldn't be blabbering about it here. I'd report it up SEC, retain a lawyer and collect my reward.