The Data Breach Looks So Wrong On So Many Levels While SHOPIFY Kept Raising New Capital! Here Are The Sequence Of Events. Connect The Dots For Yourself

Summary

• 1) 14 Sep: Goldman upgrades the stock to $1300+ - just the fact they had to stretch their projection out to FY2040 nos. (just imagine 20 years out!!).
• 2) 16 Sep: Company announces huge secondary to be closed by Sep 18th with Goldman as one of the lead underwriters – this piece of news came as a surprise.
• 3) 18-21 Sep: With the stock hammered in this lead up to the offering post announcement, Goldman and the management uses its PR machinery and bots to spread the buzz.
• 4) 22 Sep morning: Company announces completion of the raise in the morning citing overallocation, obviously juiced it all up for the retail investors to keep buying.
• 5) 22 Sep after hours: Once the big raise is all done and dusted, the money is in the bag, the stock has been propped up 10% in a matter of 3-4 sessions, the data breach news is intentionally and very conveniently dropped in the after-hours.

$SHOP This now looks so so wrong on so many levels on the part of the so called “messiah” management and the “do gooder” bankers! Here are the sequence of events. Connect the dots for yourself and then tell me how one, irrespective of being on the bull side or the bear side, does not see this as one of the most blatant manipulations pulled over the retail investors:

1) 14 Sep: Goldman upgrades the stock to $1300+ - just the fact they had to stretch their projection out to FY2040 nos. (just imagine 20 years out!!) in their model they published to justify the valuation says it all. Complete and utter lack of scruples, however the report quite understandably failed to sway the sophisticated investor class who have immediate access to the Goldman content- judging from the downward price action on the day it might have even triggered the selloff amongst this professional investor category. The report could not pick any organic coverage or traction amongst the retail investor class and went largely unnoticed.

2) 16 Sep: Company announces huge secondary to be closed by Sep 18th with Goldman as one of the lead underwriters – this piece of news came as a surprise and a shock to most investors, given they already had multiple billions in cash on the balance sheet post the previous raise only a quarter back. Looked highly suspicious and completely unnecessary to say the least at the time. Many of the more prudent investors (or the ones privy to more information) rightfully sold it off (and also those who had access to the Goldman report who saw the utterly desperate report for what it really was in light of this now- just a desperate front and a pathetic move to prop the stock up amidst the dirty games played behind the scenes, which clearly failed as it not pick any organic coverage or gained traction) Shopify shares drop after market close following secondary offering

3) 18-21 Sep: With the stock hammered by the pros and institutional investors selling it off hard in this lead up to the offering post announcement, and realizing the Goldman upgrade was not picked up by the media and did not gain any traction the week before, Goldman and the management uses its PR machinery and bots to spread the buzz of the Goldman upgrade from almost a week back (a desperate and pathetic move) Suddenly the upgrade is splashed on all retail news channels and twitter, and the Barrons article link copied and pasted all over. The stock starts to run up presumably on the indiscriminate one way buying thanks to the naivete of the retail class who blindly always buys into Shopify’s BS and treat CEO Tobi as some new age Messiah. Of course, the algos taking advantage of the setup further kept pushing the stock higher, on the backs of UK’s lockdown news. I cannot believe even Barrons normally considered to be a reliable and neutral player was hand in glove (trusted by so many retail investors as a solid outlet who has their backs) Here is what Barrons comes out with 1 full week (21 Sep) after the actual Goldman upgrade (14 Sep) Shopify Stock Has More Than Doubled in 2020. Why Goldman Sachs Sees Even More Gains. Read it for yourself and tell me if it is not utterly misleading in its mention about the timing of the upgrade. Article intentionally published on another Monday and used Monday as reference so that no one realizes the upgrade was actually from the Monday the week before. Such subtle manipulative little tactics if you read the following excerpt from the article– “Analyst Christopher Merwin reiterated a Buy rating on Shopify stock (ticker: SHOP) on Monday, while raising his target for the price to $1,318 from $1,286. Shopify stock was up 1.1% at $911.37 at 10:11 a.m., after being down 2.6% to $878 in early trading amid a broad selloff that dragged on the S&P 500, which is down by 1.9%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which has slumped 2.3%.”

4) 22 Sep morning: Company announces completion of the raise in the morning citing overallocation, obviously juiced it all up for the retail investors to keep buying first by the Goldman upgrade, then artificial PR machinery at work, even thestreet.com picked it up and ran with it. Stock at this point is 10%+ up from the post-secondary low. Knowing what we know now, Crazy right!

5) 22 Sep after hours: Once the big raise is all done and dusted, the money is in the bag, the stock has been propped up 10% in a matter of 3-4 sessions, the data breach news is intentionally and very conveniently dropped in the after-hours. How this whole thing was manipulated all this while, knowing what we know now! Broken first by BNN Bloomberg (on twitter - https://twitter.com/BNNBloomberg/status/1308503237218238465 ) and then followed by their own post on their website Incident Update ). Why? All the while showing as if it wasn’t by its own design to drop the news today, once all its goals had been achieved and investors fleeced. There have been several posts on twitter (https://twitter.com/epichedge/status/1308510528969551876) with snapshots of the email from Shopify to the affected customer/merchant that was sent to them on September 18th (the day when they closed their secondary offering!!) in which they disclosed that they determined the breach and eliminated the rogue employees on September 14th (which means they actually must have found out the problem at least some days prior and Goldman publishes their report on September 14th, crazy co-incidence! ) They realized they needed to rush with the capital raise at the elevated price before the cat is out of the bag. They don’t let even a hint of this out until 18th when they start sending emails to customers (full 4 days after they have determined the breach!) So customers are in the dark for full 4-5 days, whereby if they would have known earlier they would have been able to act to further to protect their customers information thereon or take appropriate protective measures) Investors are in the dark until now full 7-8 days later! (if we believe the 14 Sep date in their own email to merchants) It’s a gross violation of the business and moral obligations to their customers! It’s blatant breaking of their fiduciary duties to their investors because this falls not just within the realms of material information but even more so harmful in light of the secondary offering held parallely while all this happening behind the scenes. They squeeze one more capital raise out of the blissfully ignorant investors all the while keeping such material negative news under complete wraps. I now see the original post by the merchant on twitter displaying the email they received from Shopify on September 18th taken down but some still up, with the mention of September 14th as the day they determined the breach and its roots. All of this points to something even more rotten underneath. I doubt it’s as contained as 200 merchants and as narrow and confined as 2 employees! Since the sequence of the events and the way they unraveled, out to the customers and out to the investors has too much of crazy co-incidence baked in and requires too much suspension of disbelief to be all kosher.