Weekly Wrap Up: Sunday, August 23, 2026

Five investigations this week, four against listed equities and one against a bond. It was a down week for the market and a better one for the shorts: the four names targeted fell 10.9% on average, against 1.4% for the S&P 500. Flotek carried most of that on its own.

The Market and the Shorts

Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY) and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), from the August 14 close to the August 21 close. The names shorted this week fell 10.9% on average by Friday's close, each measured from its close the day before the report, and a decline there is a gain for the short side, which is why it is the one number in green. Across all open Activ8 shorts, now 202 names, 69% fell and the median move was -3.0%.

The Tape

The Takeaway. Flotek's 31.1% is not just the biggest number on the page, it is a rare one. Wolfpack outperformed all first week declines, in the top 92% across 1,363 historical short selling reports. The median first week is -4.6%, and two thirds finish down at all. Measured against that line the rest of the table is ordinary: Capricor's -5.4% sits at the 47th percentile, and Guggenheim and Aeva are one session and zero sessions old, too early to score. Four investigators, four sectors, four names no other firm has touched this year. Nobody converged on anything, and the last investigator to look at Flotek was Mox Reports in July 2015.

Skeletons in the Closet

Every report this week is about something a company did not say. Flotek's $400 million contract was cancelled on August 14, and investors heard it from WolfPack, not the company. Capricor's advisory committee voted 9 to 3 against its evidence, and August's announcement was read as a regulatory win it was not. Guggenheim's distribution has run nineteen years without a cut and, The Bear Cave argues, without anyone asking where the money came from. Aeva's losses sit in filings almost nobody reads. Four sectors, one shape. We also published on copyright law being used to scrub short seller research out of Google.

Activ8 News Desk

Betting on Takedown · published Wednesday

A copyright law written to stop piracy was used to pull press coverage of short seller research out of Google, and we traced the filing history behind it.

The notice went up on April 27, 2026, in Muddy Waters' name, and it targeted 18 URLs across 14 domains. Five of the 18 came out of Google's index, a 28% hit rate. Pull the filer's wider history and the pattern gets harder to read as coincidence: 12 notices covering 84 URLs across roughly 68 domains, one filed in 2013 and the other eleven between October 2025 and June 2026. Nine of the 12 touch a single betting operator, either acting directly for it and its affiliates or hitting journalism about it.

The research being delisted was not fringe. Muddy Waters' report on Sportradar runs 123 pages and discloses a short. Callisto's runs 43. Sportradar has fallen 50.3% since October.

The filer's own explanation, verbatim, was that "Many webstes have copied my investigation."

Read the full article →

The Campaigns

Capricor has no approved product. Its whole value rests on Deramiocel, a Duchenne muscular dystrophy therapy still under FDA review, and Red Flag Research argues the market read August's announcement as an approval it was not.

Key Points

• An advisory committee had already voted 9 to 3 against the proposition that the available evidence supported the drug's effectiveness.
• Roughly 15.98 million shares were short as of July 31, about 30.4% of the float, which the report treats as the largest risk facing anyone short the stock.
• The new San Diego lease runs near $958,000 a month and can be terminated if Deramiocel misses FDA approval by December 31, 2026.

In context. Red Flag Research's 11th report of 2026, and its 29th since it started publishing in June 2025. Its median first week is -2.6%, so Capricor is a slightly harder hit than typical for the firm, and at the 47th percentile of all 1,363 first weeks Activ8 tracks it is almost exactly an average one. Biotechnology is the most crowded corner of healthcare this year: 17 reports from six investigators.

Read the Full Report Summary →

Flotek rose about 35% on a $400 million Puerto Rico power contract announced August 3. WolfPack Research says that contract was cancelled on August 14 and the company still has not told investors.

Key Points

• The contract represented roughly 57% of Flotek's backlog from 2027 to 2030, according to WolfPack Research.
• The cancellation followed a regulator's finding of an apparently unauthorized signature, referred to Puerto Rico's Department of Justice and federal authorities.
• A February 2026 regulator letter had already flagged the counterparty's proposed award value as roughly 100 times its reported annual revenues.

In context. WolfPack Research's 8th report of 2026 and its 33rd since 2019, against a median first week of -4.0%. Flotek is roughly eight times that, and only 112 of the 1,363 first weeks on record were worse, which puts it in the bottom 8%. Energy is the thinnest sector of the year, three reports out of 164, and it produced the largest move in it.

Read the Full Report Summary →

GOF has paid $0.18 a share every month for nineteen years without a cut, over 20% annually on NAV. The Bear Cave alleges the money came from selling new shares above net asset value, not from the portfolio.

Key Points

• Over eight fiscal years the fund distributed $1.74 billion while the portfolio generated about a third of that, counting every realized and unrealized gain.
• It closed above NAV for 125 consecutive month ends through July 2026. That premium has now flipped to a discount, which restricts the issuance that funded the payout.
• The report cites a former Guggenheim executive calling GOF "a dumping ground," and Level 3 holdings including $23 million of notes from a UK shell twelve weeks old.

In context. The Bear Cave's 7th report of 2026 and its 98th since 2020, the longest run of anyone in this issue, with a median first week of -4.4%. It is also its second asset manager of the year, after StepStone Group in July. Guggenheim is one session old, so -4.0% is a first day, not a first week.

Read the Full Report Summary →

Aeva ships lidar mostly as prototypes and engineering services, with commercial deliveries it calls immaterial. Fugazi Research argues the $1.3 billion market value bears no relationship to that business.

Key Points

• Roughly 72 times FY2025 revenue of $18.1 million, against Oracle at about 6 times, according to Fugazi Research.
• The company lost $114.6 million on $12.4 million of revenue in the first half of 2026, which the report frames as $9.24 lost for every $1 earned.
• Insiders sold about $11.9 million over the trailing three months while the share count rose 10.7% in under five months.

In context. Fugazi Research's 16th report of 2026, the most prolific of the four, and the hardest hitting: a median first week of -26.8% across 23 reports, and -34.3% across 2026 alone. Aeva has had one session of trading, so that comparison has not started yet. Semiconductors have drawn nine reports this year.

Read the Full Report Summary →

Hunterbrook Media on Sammons Financial Group

Sammons is a $130 billion life insurer, privately held, and the quiet part owner of Guggenheim. No listed equity means no card. Hunterbrook shorted the bonds instead, which is the subject of The Borrow below.

Key Points

• Guggenheim's Form ADV says Sammons "holds an indirect, substantial economic interest in Guggenheim Capital" and that the relationship creates "an incentive for GPI to favor Sammons's interests."
• As of 2023 Guggenheim ran 87% of Sammons's assets and collected roughly $75 million a year in disclosed fees.
• Roughly $2.1 billion that Midland National had carried as affiliated, apparently Guggenheim managed vehicles and Guggenheim bonds, was reclassified as unaffiliated.
• Hunterbrook is explicit that no one has been charged, and that there is no indication Sammons is a subject, target or witness in any investigation.

In context. Hunterbrook Media's 8th report of 2026 and its 31st since April 2024. Its median first week is -1.5%, the mildest of anyone in this issue, which fits a newsroom that publishes as much bullish work as bearish. Sammons has no ticker, so it will never carry a first-week number at all.

Read the full investigation →

Campaign Updates

• Viceroy Research went at Blue Moon Metals twice this week, from two directions. One letter to the Ontario Securities Commission asks the regulator to investigate whether Blue Moon's April 2026 prospectus omitted a regulatory finding issued six days before filing. The second piece argues the Norwegian Environment Agency's new calculation standard would force tailings disposal at Nussir to be cut by 79% to 95%. Disclosure on one side, the asset itself on the other. It is Viceroy's third report of 2026.

The Borrow

Short selling, explained. One mechanic a week.

How do you short a bond?

Hunterbrook is a short shop by reputation, so this week reads strangely. Two of its three investigations were bullish, and the one bearish call was not on a stock at all.

Sammons Financial Group is privately held. There is no ticker, no float and nothing to borrow on an exchange, which normally puts a company out of reach of a short seller. What Sammons does have is debt: a $750 million ten year issue sold in June 2026 and due in 2036. Hunterbrook Capital disclosed a short against those bonds.

There are three usual routes into a trade like that:

• Borrow the bonds. Ask a prime broker to locate them, borrow, and sell. It works, but corporate bonds trade thinly and the borrow fee reflects that.
• Buy credit default swaps. You pay a premium and get paid if the credit deteriorates. This is the standard choice, though liquid single name CDS really only exists for large, frequent issuers.
• Use a total return swap. Take the paying side and you get synthetic short exposure without ever touching the bond.

Hunterbrook has not said which it used. The point worth keeping is that the bond market gave it a way to express a view the equity market simply did not offer.

It worked. After the August 16 report, Bloomberg reported that the 2036 bonds fell to their lowest level since issue, with the yield spread widening to about 2 percentage points over the benchmark from 1.47 a week earlier. Sammons has since said it is divesting its Guggenheim stake.

Around the Short World

Short sellers make $2.1 billion as small nuclear unwinds - S3 Partners puts funds' gains against NuScale, Nano Nuclear and Oklo at $2.1 billion over the past year, with $30.3 billion erased from their combined value since October. Source: Financial Times

Hunterbrook published three investigations this week - A leaked database naming Google and Amazon as Modine's anchor customers, a filing showing Citi already holds security over Mark Walter's Carvana stake, and the Sammons bond short above. Source: Hunterbrook Media

Andrew Left on the cost of being right too early - Evergrande's founder was sentenced to life this week. Left, fined and banned from Hong Kong trading over his 2012 warning, says being right and being early are not the same trade. Source: Bloomberg

Short interest in the Braves triples on lockout risk - S3 Partners puts short interest in the only listed MLB team at $169 million, a wager that a work stoppage as early as December 1 dents team valuations. Source: TradingView

Egypt's short selling rulebook lands, trading does not - The FRA lifted the borrowable ceiling to 40% of free float with an uptick rule and a 50% cash margin, but eligibility lists and clearing plumbing are still unfinished. Source: Enterprise