Why Yangtze River Port and Logistics Stock Popped 15% Today

What happened

Shares of Chinese real estate and infrastructure developer Yangtze River Port and Logistics Limited (Nasdaq: YRIV) rebounded from yesterday's losses, tacking on as much as 15% in Thursday trading before finally closing up 8.3%.

Why did this happen? Excellent question. Next question, please.

So what

Seriously, no one seems to know precisely why Yangtze River stock popped today. There weren't any analyst upgrades behind the move, or even any hikes in analyst price targets.

There doesn't appear to be any news of non-Wall Street origin behind the move, either -- nothing since way back in January, when Yangtze River filed a defamation lawsuit in the Supreme Court of New York, New York County, alleging that a firm by the name of "Hindenburg Research" was trying to blow up Yangtze's business by publishing articles accusing the company of fraud and sham transactions.

About the only explanation I can find for Yangtze's sharp move higher today comes from "findanews.com," which notes that investors who have been shorting Yangtze's stock -- presumably in response to said short attack form Hindenburg -- have lately been closing their short positions.

Now what

Closing short positions involves buying shares to replace shares previously borrowed in hopes the stock would fall. Such buying activity -- if it is happening -- could explain Yangtze's rising share price today.

But if that's all that lies behind the stock movement, I'd have to advise that you refrain from buying the stock yourself. Yangtze has no revenues -- much less profits -- to its name, and there's little insight into how well the company is really doing. Therefore, buying Yangtze stock today would appear to be an exercise in sheer speculation, nothing more.

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