XpresSpa Group Inc (XSPA)

[Red Angus]

choo choo--No, I'm not sure about it. Actually, I'm not sure about a lot of things. lol

I did read about it (was it in the Aguirre article?) as being one of the very few ways to smoke out naked shorts in view of the fact that the government won't do its job in this area. It's not the dividend itself that's important (as you know, shorts have to pay the dividend on their shorted shares) but the fact that GAAP and, I believe, IRS regs require the share audit, reporting and accounting of the dividend and of course remittance of 1099s to shareholders, etc. that puts naked shorts in the squeeze. If it turns out that there are dividends to pay on 125 million shares and there are only 100 million shares outstanding, something would be seriously wrong. 25 million shares are considered "counterfeit". So the shorts, in order not to get caught naked, are forced to cover at whatever price they can. That's the squeeze.

As Aguirre points out, though, the relationship is so incestuous between the market makers and shorting community and even some financial institutions that honest investors get screwed and many companies are taken down. As is often noted, nowadays nobody in government represents the middle class anymore. The middle class isn't a "special interest" that can exert needed pressure on the appropriate people. And unless a company, especially a small company, is represented by an army of lobbyists they're at risk in many ways. Politics, special interests and bureaucracy trump all.