First of all, I bought today.
Secondly, my belief on what is going on is that the US and UK fund managers are selling Aixtron to take the tax loss in year end to offset their tax gains from their winners.
In US, the wash sale rules prohibit you taking the tax loss benefit if you buy back the same stock within 30 days. I believe similar rule exists in UK. In Germany, there is no such rule but correct me if I am wrong. In Germany you can sell Aixtron to take a loss and immediately buy them back and you can still deduct your tax loss.
If I were a US fund managers, of course I would offload my loser Aixtron in December and back them back in January. That is a ~20% gain in taxes.
From Aixtron's 2018 annual report:
As of December 31, 2018, approximately 26% of AIXTRON shares were held by private individuals, most of whom are domiciled in Germany. Approximately 73% of AIXTRON‘s outstanding shares were held by institutional investors. The majority of institutional investors (approximately 37%) was located in the United Kingdom, followed by Germany (23%) and the United States (21%). The remaining investors came from other parts of Europe and the world. At the end of 2018, the largest shareholders according to the most recent notifications were T. Rowe Price Group, the Oppenheimer Global Opportunities Fund and Deutsche Asset Management, each holding more than 5% of AIXTRON shares. 99% of the shares were in free float as defined by Deutsche Börse and approximately 1% of AIXTRON‘s shares were held by the Company.
According to the voting rights notifications and public disclosures pursuant to Section 26 para. 1 WpHG, the following institutional investors held shares of more than 3% in AIXTRON SE at the end of 2018: • T. Rowe Price International Funds, Inc., Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 5.2%. • OppenheimerFunds, Inc., Denver, Colorado, USA, 5.2%. • Deutsche Asset Management Investment GmbH, Frankfurt, Germany, 5.1%. • Argonaut Capital Partners LLP, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 4.9%. • Ministry of Finance on behalf of the State of Norway, Oslo, Norway, 4.9%. • Baillie Gifford & Co, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 4.9%. • Citigroup, Inc., Wilmington, Delaware, USA, 4.6%. • BlackRock, Inc. in Wilmington, Delaware, USA, 4.3%. • Oppenheimer International Small-Mid Company Fund, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, 3.1%. • Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company, Helsinki, Finland, 3.1%. ------------------------------------------------ You could see that 22.4% of Aixtron shares are held by the US institution investors. Another 10% by the UK. That is about 30m shares and most of them likely to have tax loss. If I were their money managers, I sell Aixtron and buy back in after 30 days. This is my theory, but I have no proof. If I were right, expect a January rally. |