To: brad greene who wrote (1503 ) 3/26/1998 9:18:00 AM From: Roo Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 5847
Brad - I'll try to answer your questions as best I can, but keep in mind that all my knowledge comes from discussion groups on the internet, not from books, so I could be off on an occasional point (just making sure you know my word is not fact!). That said:Will a shareholder's report from the company answer the question of the company's credibility on share count and float? To my knowledge, any unofficial report from the company (including share counts) is open to manipulation by the company. Credibility is unfortunately not that easy to come by. Audited current SEC filings on the other hand can lend a great deal of credibility to any company. Where does our company stand on this? The most accurate source for (legitimate) share count is the transfer agent and credibility could be gained if the company would conference call the transfer agent into a discussion with shareholders and be prepared at that time to answer questions about share count confirmed by the TA (keeping in mind that even the TA has no record of a naked position).I have heard rumors that one MM is short and that another is very short. Is there any way to find out if this is true? ....and how many shares short they may be? To my knowledge, there is no way to verify a naked short position unless the MM in a moment of insanity somehow discloses... <VBG>! Legal short positions on the major markets (NYSE, NASD, AMEX) are regularly reported (monthly I believe) and a list is maintained online. The OTC has no such provision however and so there's no simple way (and likely no way at all) to search up a legal or naked short position for BB stocks.If the transfer agent would be going to MMs to call in shares....I would think that they would need to know which MM to go to. Yes? yes.It would seem that a MM who sells Brad Greene 50,000 shares of BANY that is a naked short.....he still must deliver the shares to my broker, right? This is one of the areas that I'm not really clear on... perhaps the naked shorting is done in concert with brokers... If there is a MM who is 800,000 shares short BANY....who would know? This is the problem <g>! Are they allowed to short more than the float?.......if so, why not short 1,000,000,000 shares. As far as being "allowed" to short more than the float, no. They are "allowed" to short against "borrowed" shares that are in street name (meaning not certificated). A (severely mentally challenged) naked shorter could certainly short a billion shares as you suggested, but the risk is insane (loss of $10mil for every penny of appreciation OUCH!), not to mention, that kind of volume would have the SEC all over the stock before they could get it all out there...Is the only fear for the short MMs what the long MMs might do to them if they felt like it? There is only one fear for any shorter... stock value appreciation. For naked shorters in particular though, they run the risk of the float being bought up and certificated (a particular threat if there is a tiny float) by savvy investors and/or "shortbusters." If there are multiple short positions held, they can also find themselves competing against each other in a squeeze situation as each tries to cover. This competition can quickly escalate to bring about a feeding frenzy mentality that draws in momentum players, daytraders, shortbusters, etcetera. At some point, the shorts need to regain control. This is very successfully done by shorting again at the new higher prices timed to coincide with the exit of daytraders and momentum players all of which can spur a "panic selloff" by longs, again allowing the shorts to cover, and with yet another profit! There are occasional cases however, where the shorts cannot regain control, and of course those runups become legendary as they run sometimes into the hundreds of dollars per share before crashing. BTW, the significance of calling for your certificates in a short squeeze lies in the fact that a request from your Broker to the Transfer agent and then to the MM for certificated shares must be settled within three market days (six days with an extension), so there is sudden pressure on the short MMs to produce when this happens. -R