Investments

We are short shares of Qualcomm Incorporated, a semiconductor company teetering on the brink of disaster. For years, Qualcomm has presented itself as a technological innovator that monetizes its R&D in two ways: 1) selling chips that go into smartphones and other wireless devices and 2) licensing its patent portfolio. The licensing business, despite contributing far less revenue than the chip business, has historically supplied roughly two thirds of Qualcomm’s…

We are long shares of Intelsat and SES, two large satellite operators with significant and underappreciated 5G spectrum assets. For us, this is an unusual position to be in. For years, with our reports on Globalstar (2014), Straight Path (2015) and DISH (2016), we have publicly railed against the excesses of spectrum hype. Time and again, we have argued, equity investors have gotten carried away with their enthusiasm about offbeat frequencies and futuristic…

We are short shares of The St. Joe Company, a Florida Panhandle developer with overhyped real estate holdings and a controlling shareholder who will soon be forced to liquidate part of his investment. For more than a decade, St. Joe has lured investors with the promise of unlocking value in large tracts of undeveloped land near Panama City Beach. Every year, however, this promise has remained unfulfilled, because St. Joe’s purported plan for…

We are short shares of QuinStreet, a web-1.0 adtech firm that acts as a middleman between online advertisers and niche web sites. These niche sites attract visitors (leads) who are shopping for, say, a new credit card; QuinStreet acquires those visitors and delivers their data or eyeballs to advertisers, like credit-card companies, earning a fee along the way.

For much of QuinStreet’s eight-year history as a public company, its stock traded at less than half of its IPO price, as investors realized that QuinStreet’s outdated business model is unlikely…

We are short shares of Proteostasis Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company whose lead drug, PTI-428, aims to treat the genetic disorder cystic fibrosis. Proteostasis claims that the drug works in a unique way, by somehow increasing the levels of messenger RNA and protein corresponding to the so-called CFTR gene that is dysfunctionally mutated in people with the disease and that gives rise to its ultimately fatal…

We are short shares of Eastman Kodak Company (“Kodak”, NYSE: KODK), a 138-year old commercial printing and imaging company whose stock has more than doubled since announcing a blockchain and cryptocurrency licensing partnership.

Fittingly for a long-time provider of motion picture film products, Kodak’s sudden rise resembles something out of the movies. A dying relic of…

Prothena Corp. PLC (NASDAQ:PRTA) is a $2.4bn development-stage biotechnology company whose stock has climbed over 700% since its spin-off from Elan in December 2012. We are certain that its lead asset, NEOD001, will fail its ongoing Phase 2b and Phase 3 trials.

NEOD001 is a monoclonal antibody designed to treat amyloid light chain amyloidosis (AL amyloidosis). AL amyloidosis is a condition caused by light chain proteins misfolding, which then leads to the light chains sticking together and forming amyloid structures. These amyloids are then deposited…

We are long shares of Adamas Pharmaceuticals, a small-cap drug company on the eve of launching its first product: a treatment called Gocovri for patients with Parkinson’s disease. The mainstay therapy for Parkinson’s is a drug called levodopa, which usually works well but frequently causes involuntary and often painful movements called dyskinesias. High-quality Phase 3 studies have proven that Gocovri significantly reduces dyskinesias and improves patients’ overall conditions, leading the FDA to designate Gocovri the one and only drug approved for…

ViaSat considers itself a leader in satellite technology, capable of producing bandwidth economics competitors can’t match. For the sliver of revenue generated from delivering broadband to an airplane, that may be true. For the 70% of EBITDA that comes from delivering broadband to homes and small businesses, it is not. ViaSat provides inferior technology in a hyper-competitive market. The company’s main business is selling satellite-based basic home internet service to U.S. consumers. Unfortunately, its technology is no match for terrestrial internet providers today…

We are short shares of Pulse Biosciences, a ~$400mm medical-device company with 13 employees, zero revenue, and one focus: developing and commercializing a technology it calls “Nano-Pulse Stimulation” (NPS), in which cells are exposed to very strong electrical fields for very brief periods of time in hopes of killing them. Pulse…

We are short shares of Northern Dynasty Minerals, a Canadian company that owns an undeveloped copper and gold resource in Alaska called the Pebble deposit. Discovered decades ago but never mined, the Pebble deposit has inspired intense controversy, as a broad and bipartisan coalition including environmentalists, Alaska Natives, and commercial fishermen fought its…

We are short shares of Straight Path Communications, a disgraced “5G” hype vehicle whose stock price surged last week for an unusual reason: the announcement of a harsh regulatory crackdown. After a pseudonymous short seller in 2015 accused Straight Path of “fraud,” the FCC opened its own investigation into whether the company had violated its legal duty to actually provide service rather than merely hoard spectrum for the sake of speculation…