Moments ago, Weight Watchers which last week soared and made prompt carneage (sic) of thousands of bears (with 75% of its float short) when Oprah Winfrey announced she had bought a 10% stake in the company, saw its stock jump spike again on the most ridiculous of news: she said on the Ellen DeGeneres that she had lost 15 pounds in the last two months thanks to the food program by the debt-challenged company.
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From the NY Post [4]:
Days after announcing she bought a 10 percent stake in Weight Watchers, Oprah Winfrey says she’s lost 15 pounds since starting the program in August.
“As of today, since August 12th, I’ve lost 15 pounds,” she said to thunderous applause on Thursday’s Ellen DeGeneres show.
“I’m excited about Weight Watchers being able to bring a healthier, more holistic approach for everybody.”
The 61-year-old, who’s publicly struggled with her weight and tried numerous diets over the years, said she had never taken to the program in the past because of her distaste for the Points system.
The OWN creator says she briefly tried the diet system in the early ’70s, but never actually attended a meeting.
Surely "this time will be different", both for Oprah and for whatever round of global QE the world is now on.
Here is the newly svelte Oprah:
Some immediately wondered how this unaudited self-reporting does not constitute insider trading: after all, WTW shares soared just on the news of Winfrey's announcement making her an immediate $43.2 million profit, and then jumped another 4% on today's weight loss news adding a few more million as reward for her alleged additional wegith loss (mercifully much of the gains have been eaten since).
But far more importantly for arbitrageurs, there is now a direct way to profit from Oprah's weight gain, because if WTW surges simply on Oprah "losing" weight, then logically it has become the short of the century for every incremental pound in weight that Oprah gains.
Yes, it is an insane investment thesis, but in a world in which only central bank beta matter, it just may be the one piece of available alfalfa alpha left.
And now we wait for the comic episodes that result as thousands of "malicious" WTW short sellers fedex boxes full of chocolates to the media godess-turned-activist investor.
