What happened
Shares of Virgin Galactic (SPCE 1.16%) flew higher today, rising 6.7% through 12:15 p.m. EDT before turning tail and running the other way. Barely an hour later, as of 1:25 p.m., the stock's gains have been cut back below 2%.
Why? As TheFly.com just reported, there's an investment conference going on in New York City today, sponsored by Grant's Interest Rate Observer. And at that conference, noted short seller Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates was apparently quoted saying that he would "go long" any publicly traded space company.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
It probably doesn't need to be pointed out, but just to be safe, let's mention that Virgin Galactic is one such publicly traded space company. Indeed, when Sir Richard Branson first announced his plans to take the company public, he said his primary reason was to give individual investors a chance to "dabble a little bit in a spaceship company, own a little bit of a spaceship company."
And if even a well-known short seller like Jim Chanos is now encouraging investors to go long space stocks, then that might seem to give added weight to the attractiveness of a space stock like Virgin Galactic.
Now what
But is Chanos telling investors to buy Virgin Galactic? Maybe...but also, maybe not. In a tweet that emerged just minutes ago, CNBC Halftime Report host Scott Wapner popped the Virgin Galactic bubble by warning that Chanos was in fact just joking when he told people to buy space stocks. In fact, Chanos doesn't think they're worth buying at all.
Since there seems to be some confusion in the markets, Jim Chanos tells me he was JOKING when talking "positively" about space-related companies, which may be moving on his perceived bullish comments. It was a joke, folks. Back to your regularly scheduled trading...
— Scott Wapner (@ScottWapnerCNBC) October 20, 2020
And now, a lot of folks who (thought they) were buying Virgin Galactic stock on Chanos's say-so are counting up their losses instead.
Ha. Ha. Very funny, Mr. Chanos.
