Those who use the number of short sales provided by FINRA or other websites, in order to promote the idea of a coming short squeeze, are doing a great disservice to this board, whether they do so out of ignorance or deliberately. There is a big difference between a short sale and a failure to deliver. Failures to deliver may cause a short squeeze, but short sales by themselves will not. Here's how it works: In order to execute a trade order quickly, a market maker may buy or sell shares he doesn't presently have access to. As soon as such a trade happens, it is registered and entered as a "short" sale on FINRA's SHO listings, like this:
Thereafter, the MM will quickly find the necessary shares and settle the trade. This settlement is not mentioned on FINRA's SHO list. So, when there is a so called 22.6 % short volume (as in the case of ICLD on 17th March), there is plenty of room within the remaining 77.4 % of other trades for the short position to have been settled and cleared. It is only when the shorted shares are not closed out at the end of the day, that a "failure to deliver" situation occurs. ICLD is NOT in a failure to deliver position. See the lower right corner of this link:
I have been in stocks that consistently had 40-50% short sales for days and days, but never any failures to deliver. Here are more detailed explanations on this subject:
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