Thread by @FullFact

A viral piece about the link between hedge funds, the Vote Leave campaign and Boris Johnson's leadership bid claims there was a large spike in "shorting" in the lead up to Boris Johnson becoming Conservative leader.

We can't find any such spike.

fullfact.org/economy/short-…

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We think Byline Times looked only at the number of active short positions, not all of them.

Shorting is where a fund borrows shares, sells them and hopes the share price falls so they can buy them back at a lower price, return them to the lender, and make a profit.

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Because short positions are typically only active for a short period of time, you'd expect the positions active at any given time to be clustered in the recent past.

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If you look at all short positions taken out by firms (including historic positions that have since concluded or been superseded), it's clear there was no dramatic change in the number of positions taken out in the lead up to the July leadership election.

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Byline Times followed up by suggesting that it just looked at the number of UK firms taking out positions, not the total number of positions.

We're not convinced this accounts for the discrepancy. We'd encourage Byline Times to share the actual data behind its work.

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