Weekly Wrap Up: Sunday, September 13, 2026

Two new investigations landed in a week when every index fell. The Dow lost 1.5%, the S&P 500 0.8% and the Nasdaq 100 0.6%, and the wider book of open shorts fell harder, with the median name down 3.4%. The two new targets split: one fell 10.4% on its first day, the other rose 4.6% across its first four sessions.

The Market and the Shorts

Dow (DIA), S&P 500 (SPY), Nasdaq 100 (QQQ), from the September 4 close to the September 11 close. The names shorted this week fell 2.9% 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, 67.8% fell and the median move was -3.4%.

The Tape

Why it matters. Neither of this week's reports has a closed first week, so neither can be ranked against the 1,378 on record. Swvl is a single session old and already down 10.4%, more than double the all-report median first week of -4.7%, though short of Fugazi Research's own -22.2% median across 26 scored reports. Jersey Mike's is four sessions old and up 4.6%, the wrong way against both the book and Cedar Grove Capital Management's -5.7% median across six scored reports. Behind them the open-short book had a heavy week: 67.8% of 202 names fell and the median moved -3.4%, worse than any index on the bar. Two investigators, two sectors, and nobody converged.

Paid before the public

Both of this week's reports turn on the same question: who got paid before public shareholders arrived? Cedar Grove Capital Management argues Blackstone took most of its money out of Jersey Mike's before the shares ever traded, and kept voting control after they did. Fugazi Research describes Swvl's August placement handing private buyers rights that public holders of the identical shares do not get. Neither report is really about sandwiches or buses. Both are about the order of the queue, and where the public sits in it.

Activ8 News Desk

No new Activ8 pieces this week. Our journalists and data team have some good things in the works, and they will be publishing next week.

The Campaigns

Jersey Mike's Subs is a sandwich chain run almost entirely through franchisees, which Blackstone bought in January 2025 and floated on July 30 at $23 a share. Cedar Grove Capital Management argues the listing was built to favor the sponsor, and that the growth investors are paying for has largely already happened.

Key Points

• About $1.765 billion to Blackstone in roughly eighteen months, by Cedar Grove's count: a pre-IPO payment of about $1.16 billion, made alongside $2.1 billion of debt that the firm says more than doubled annual interest expense, plus $605 million of IPO proceeds.
• Ahead of the offering, the report says, Jersey Mike's was reorganized into an UP-C structure with a tax receivable agreement and dual-class shares that leave Blackstone with supermajority voting control, while the founder was given an earnout worth roughly $250 million.
• From 1,048 units in 2015 to more than 3,250 at the end of 2025, growth Cedar Grove attributes largely to Subway's decline, a tailwind it argues is now mostly spent.

In context. Cedar Grove Capital Management's report #1 of 2026 and #7 since 2014, against a median first week of -5.7% across 6 scored reports. This one is 4 day(s) old, so it has no first week to score yet. Consumer Cyclical has drawn only 14 of the year's 173 reports, from 12 investigators.

Read the Full Report Summary →

Swvl Holdings runs fixed-route bus services in Egypt and the Gulf and went public through a 2022 SPAC merger at a $1.5 billion valuation. Fugazi Research alleges its reported profits come from below-the-line gains rather than the business, and that a US expansion story lifted the stock without disclosed contracts behind it.

Key Points

• 2.4% of target: the SPAC materials projected more than $1 billion of annual gross revenue by 2025, and Swvl reported $24.2 million for FY2025, according to the report.
• $18.83 million of other income from 13 creditor settlements, struck at an average 85% discount, turned a roughly $6.7 million operating loss into a $3.06 million net profit in FY2023, the report says, and Fugazi Research alleges the same mechanism drove FY2025's $1.3 million profit.
• The August 2026 private placement added about 10 million shares to a base of just under 10 million, and Fugazi Research says the private buyers received board nomination, pro rata and consent rights that public holders of the same security do not.

In context. Fugazi Research's report #19 of 2026 and #27 since 2025, against a median first week of -22.2% across 26 scored reports. This one is 0 day(s) old, so it has no first week to score yet. Technology is the year's busiest sector, with 45 of 173 reports from 22 investigators, and Swvl's previous coverage on record was WolfPack Research in September 2024.

Read the Full Report Summary →

Campaign Updates

• Viceroy Research published three more pieces on Blue Moon Metals: a September 8 report arguing Norway's admission that its fjord-disposal guidance needs correcting leaves Nussir's permit exposed, a September 10 letter asking the EFTA Surveillance Authority to act before tailings are deposited in Repparfjorden, and a September 11 note citing a local news interview in which the Norwegian Environment Agency said it is examining the justification behind Nussir's sea-disposal permit.

The Borrow

Short selling, explained. One mechanic a week.

What does it take to borrow a small stock?

A short sale cannot execute until the broker has located shares to borrow. Regulation SHO requires a reasonable belief that the shares can be found, which is the line between a short sale and a naked one. On heavily traded names the locate happens automatically and nobody sees it.

Small floats are where it stops being automatic. The float is the number of shares available for public trading, and the fewer there are, the fewer can be lent. Those names tend to land on the hard-to-borrow list, where a locate may need a manual request, the borrow rate runs higher, and a denied request means the position cannot be opened at that broker at all. Institutions with prime broker relationships can sometimes find shares when retail platforms cannot.

Swvl is the week's example. Fugazi Research counts roughly 22 million shares outstanding, against a base of just under 10 million before August's placement, and the roughly 10 million new shares are locked up until early 2027. That is a small stock by any measure.

There are two routes in: borrow the common and sell it, or take the exposure through options where they are listed. Fugazi Research does not disclose which, if either, it used.

Around the Short World

Muddy Waters gets Quinn Emanuel thrown off the Techtronic case - A Texas federal judge disqualified the firm from Techtronic's defamation suit against Muddy Waters, finding it held confidential information from representing the short seller in a related probe. Jehoshaphat Research has posted the order. Source: Jehoshaphat Research

Rob Arnott: the market is frothy, and you still should not short it - Syzygy's chairman calls US stocks frothy and expensive but warns against betting on the fall, because bubbles can keep rising sharply before they reverse. Source: Bloomberg

Hindenburg's Adani report, seen from Islamabad - Pakistani commentator Farrukh Khan Pitafi argues the Adani affair points to contagion risk in an Indian economy he says is less transparent than its growth figures suggest. Source: The Express Tribune