Full credit to Taxloss on that one @Nic123 -- he called it well.

Reminds me again that you can look foolish for a long time before your view is validated. Non-consensus positioning is a lonely and uncomfortable thing.. but it's often where the best returns are found. Also, avoiding the losers is just as important as finding the winners.

Taxloss wasn't entirely alone in calling out some dodgy accounting practices at Cettire @Strawman & @Nic123. I listened to many podcasts of the Contrarians where Adam Schwab did not hold back on his comments and disdain for some of the (alledged) shenanigans and bookkeeping at Cettire. To the point where even Adir Siffman (of Catapult fame), who notoriously is happy to say whatever/whenever and stand by his opinion, was trying to rein him in.

To the victor the spoils Adam!!

Wasn't it the AFR that first "discovered" that the business wasn't more than a duty arb? The whole thing never made sense – but when the AFR highlighted the duty issue, the penny really dropped. I have to admit the accounting fraud angle didn't make sense and I think a lot of bloggers started tilting at windmills. CTT was started by a guy in his parents' spare bedroom. There was no way he was going to pull off a sophisticated accounting fraud that managed to get past two auditors.

CTT seems like its probably getting close to insolvency given the cash burn and that the "moat" of the business has been blown up. Amazingly, Mintz will have pulled out almost $350m in the space of 4 years. Not bad for a Shopify website.