SoftBank is reportedly sitting on trading gains of about $4bn (£3bn) after a series of colossal bets on equity derivatives by founder Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank has spent $4bn on options premiums focused on individual US technology stocks in the past few months, according to the Financial Times which said the move had helped propel US technology stocks to record highs in recent sessions.
Last week, claims first emerged that SoftBank was the “Nasdaq whale” which was pumping up the US stock market with notional exposure of about $30bn.
By the middle of last week, the US equity market had rallied by around 55pc since March.
Softbank has significant direct holdings in the tech sector of this same market. It’s also large enough that it can move the market – it is indeed a whale.
Softbank has made significant losses in its $100 billion Vision Fund. At least, that’s the impression I get. The next mark to market reporting date for Softbank is the end of September.
So, why not do a little ramping in order to boost that asset valuation in a few week’s time?
This is not a theory, not even an opinion, just a speculation.
Remember the Hunt brothers. I doubt if even Softbank can make a corner in tech stocks for long. But if the aim is just cosmetic for their punters in making their September numbers look good, they might be able to get away with it in the short term.