Jackson America

CACC: Recent Events Add to the Short Thesis

Lance,
Your suggestion is very interesting. I think that requiring (in good faith) an author to disclose his/her position is fundamental to helping readers balance an author's natural subjectivity with the inevitable other side of the argument. Sites like Seeking Alpha are fantastic because they allow investors to share their thoughts and work with the investment community. Further, these sites provide a forum for investors to present well articulated, factually-driven, negative views on stocks and sectors. Cautious investment opinions can be very helpful in highlighting investment dangers (despite the stigma associated with short selling). Feedback and comments to the author make the process even more helpful for the entire community.

However, asking authors to disclose the size of their positions takes the "intent" behind asking an author to disclose their position, to a whole new level. I also would argue that a position size is not always consistent with conviction levels, which can lead to an outcome that could actually be misleading. For example, some positions can be sized based upon daily volumes, upon sector allocations, upon strategy (quant funds may have 1000's of positions, whereas concentrated value deep value funds, may only have 10 positions), etc. Your suggestion is very interesting and I’m sure would provoke a wide variety of opinions.