Simon Cawkwell
Simon Allerton Cawkwell (born October1946) is a British stock market commentator, share trader and author, best known for writing a thrice-weekly diary at the now dissolved T1ps.com, publicly identifying companies whose share price he believes will fall and betting his own money on such falls. He is currently an author, public speaker + podcaster, known as Evil Knievil, his best known output is Evil Diaries on the Master Investor website. Background. Simon Cawkwell is the son of George Cawkwell, the historian and former Vice Master of University College, Oxford. He was educated at the Dragon School, in  Oxford, and Rugby School. His first job was an Articled clerk at accountancy firm Coopers & Lybrand. He worked in Zambia as a mines "cost flow and taxation forecast accountant" returning to the UK in 1973. Trading and exposing fraud. Cawkwell was involved in exposing the fraud committed by Robert Maxwell specifically Maxwell Communication Corporation. Cawkwell did his first share trade in 1967 at the age of 21 and his first short position taken was MFI Group in 1973, it collapsed from 150p to 10p, he also made £1 million on short-selling shares in Northern Rock, Polly Peck and  Amber Day. In the early 2000's, he made the correct prediction on the prices of gold stocks. Cawkwell was listed amongst the "World's top ten most famous traders of all time" in 2019 by IG Group. Short selling. His short selling activities were curtailed by the "Short-Selling Prohibition" disclosure rules in 2008 requiring notification if the short position covered more than 0.25% of a company's shares, this expired in May 2020. Further short selling notification thresholds were announced in January 2021. Company directorships. In March 2001, Cawkwell issued a $1 million legal claim against former  Russian Deputy Prime Minister Boris Fedorov, in response to moves to take control of the Russian oil and gas company Gazprom. He was a director of Tranquillo, a major shareholder in Gazprom. Cawkwell started his own accountancy firm in Jermyn Street, Mayfair. He also founded "Company Communications Centre" with two former directors of Oyez Group in 1978. Cawkwell was a director of Virgin Atlantic. He was chairman of "WineBank", however efforts to save this wine trading group were not successful. He was forced to resign as a company director of Kryso Resources (renamed China Nonferrous Gold in 2013) after he  was found to have broken the rules of the AIM stock exchange by buying shares during a prohibited period. Cawkwell was previously a director of Greasemeter Limited, Fisher Harrison Limited, Incase Solutions Limited, Custom Products Limited and Kryso Resources Limited. Gambling. Cawkwell trades on the betting exchange Betfair, he had a long-running dispute with the firm when his wager that Niall Quinn would not become permanent manager of Sunderland AFC was lost, despite Quinn's stating that he was taking the job only temporarily. Roy Keane took over the role a few weeks later in August 2006, after Betfair  had settled the market. Betfair suspended Cawkwell's account in January 2020. He had a dispute with Sportingbet regarding the ball crossing the goal-line without a goal being given in the 2018 soccer World Cup competition. In 2014 he was reported to have made £150,000 in one week sports betting.