Regarding the controversy surrounding Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey and his daughter’s stock sales, the actual number of shares sold is less important than the context. Most people are looking at the wrong part of the story. The issue isn’t that a broker suggested a sale, nor is it the specific profit amount; the real question is why the broker suggested selling exactly ten lots (10,000 shares).
🚨 Focus 1: The Motive Behind “Only Ten Lots”
The recommendation to sell exactly 10 lots points to a specific strategic motive. It is reasonable to suspect that the broker was operating under Wong Chi-huey’s general direction to manage the holdings in a way that avoided triggering the alert thresholds for large shareholder sell-offs. By keeping the transaction size just below certain reporting or market-warning levels, the sale could be executed with less scrutiny.
Do you think that’s the primary issue? Hardly.
🏔️ Focus 2: Long-term Selling Hints at a Lack of Confidence
What defines a “high point” for a stock? If the clinical trial unblinding (解盲) had been a success, today’s so-called ‘high price’ would have been nothing more than a small foothills on the way to a much higher mountain.
The fact that the broker suggested selling simply because the price was “high” reveals an even more serious issue that everyone is ignoring. We shouldn’t look at the sale of 10 lots before the unblinding as an isolated incident. Instead, we must consider the long-term, consistent pattern of stock sales by Wong and his daughter.
This behavior suggests that Wong Chi-huey never intended to hold OBI Pharma as a long-term investment. He chose to continuously sell off shares for his daughter, which may be highly correlated with the original purpose and expected goals of OBI Pharma’s founding. If the man behind the science doesn’t believe in the long-term value, why should the public?
However, it appears the DPP and Tsai Ing-wen have already decided how to handle the Wong Chi-huey and OBI Pharma case: continued distancing and cutting ties.