Anavex Life Sciences Corp (AVXL)

[apostrophe]

re: "DND* is a perfect example BA at the end they had 100mm os and 300 million short,yes for real..."

I think I remember that one.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/34988-dendreon-the-short-story

I can't find the article right now but there was another one where there was a guy that bought up all outstanding shares of a small company. He checked with the transfer agent. Yup, he now owned 100%. The next day the stock continued trading back and forth with the volume in millions and millions of shares as if nothing had happened. Apparently most of the traders didn't know that they were all phantom shares.

It's also pretty likely that the nice little periodically updated "official" tally showing shares short in no way indicated the true state of affairs. Which could be cause for a bit of scepticism regarding the current "aggregate" low number for AVXL

There was this little company (who shall remain nameless) that kept most of their stock in trailers parked in the back lot. One day I came in and noticed that they had all disappeared. Oh, the audit's tomorrow. There is this little thing called inventory tax. They were back a few days later. I imagine something analgeous can be done with shares to temporarily reset the aggregate count when you know the date that the report comes out.

This is from a 2008 article but it seems unlikely things have changed too radically:

"The [SEC] inspector general's report said the SEC received some 5,000 complaints alleging possible market manipulation using short sales between Jan. 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008. Of those, 123 or 2.5% were forwarded for investigation and no cases were brought, the report said. By comparison, about 12.5% of emails alleging insider trading prompted an investigation.

The report, by SEC Inspector General H. David Kotz, said the agency lacks uniform procedures for handling tips. He also noted understaffing, saying four people were charged with reviewing the 1.38 million emails that came in during the year-and-a-half period.

In a written response, the SEC's enforcement staff played down the likelihood of naked short-selling abuses. ..."

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123742141942278703

We can rest easy knowing that if another Martha Steward pops up acting on an indirect $48k tip from their broker, they'll be on the case, handcuffs and jail at the ready.

If one looks at the history of naked shorting (eg wikiped), people have been grappling with it for literally, centuries. It's one of those market mechanisms that are helpful if not abused but the problem is that it's hard to pin down when it is being abused.

This is kind of interesting.

Does this actually work? If a company declares a dividend, all the shares have to be tallied up and identified. Obviously, this might put a bit of a squeeze on somebody who has synthesized a major boatload of phantom shares. I wonder if Anavex could declare a token dividend (say, $0.01) to see how many of the shares that got dumped out there are actually real. Or would the dividend need to be more substantial? Come to think of it, I can't think of any dividend stocks offhand that have experienced trading activity resembling a short attack...

http://seekingalpha.com/article/1645772-biolase-ceo-takes-dead-aim-at-naked-short-sellers-main-street-cheers