ERHC Energy Inc (ERHE)

[nordicroots]

No idea - but here is a little thought exercise building off your earlier theory of brokerage firms going bust with respect to covering in this name when that occurs. If you want to test your thesis of short sellers I think it could be done by having all those individuals in the smallish circle of trust who hold their shares closely (in street name within their accounts - where they are available by the brokers to loan out to short sellers) to simply offer all their shares for sale at something reasonable like for example $150/share (Don't give me grief for the price pulled out of thin air - it has no basis in anything sort of reality other than the fact that if met would probably make a lot of happy longs :) ) - would it ever fill? probably not and no one would really care because that is not the point of this thought exercise). To continue with this example, if they all woke up one morning and decided to list their shares for sale this would mean their shares would no longer be available in the brokers inventory of shares (in street name) to loan out and in theory could prompt buy in notices to the evil short sellers.

Alternately, the longs could simply request the stock certificates and have the shares removed from street name - both actions would seem to have the same effect, the brokers would no longer have the needed inventory to loan them out. The last thing the brokers want to do is be on the hook for the losses the short sellers would incur during the ensuing short squeeze. You have made mention of that in earlier e-mails but there was never any discussion of this aspect.

This first part of the thought exercise above seems to have conflicting accounts of how that would play out with respect to the idea of simply offering the shares for sale might (or might not) work out. As this first excerpt below discusses, just offering them for sale has no impact, but the author does acknowledge that requesting the stock share certificates from the broker DOES accomplish this.

As several articles mention including the articles linked below, you must request a certificate of your stock shares in order to be in possession and keep them yourself from being borrowed (i.e., rather than your broker holding them in street name that would allow them to be readily available to be loaned out).

"Most brokers do not do this because the make a percentage for the transaction. Otherwise, with a fully funded account you can collect these interest rates/rebates yourself. Your broker is the holder of your position and reserves the right to loan your shares at any given time. This is written in your brokerage agreement and if not readily available you can give them a call."

"Setting a high limit order gives the clearing firm or third party that your broker may or may be under contract with the ability to see where your position will possibly be sold and gives them the opportunity to continually sell and buy back, some times hundreds of times in a matter of minutes, your position. With high frequency trading this often happens from algorithms or a “black box”."

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-putting-a-high-limit-sell-order-will-prevent-shorts-from-borrowing-your-shares

And this one "the brokerage firm has the right to call any short seller to return the shares at any point. In this case, the short seller will have to return the shares to the brokerage firm by purchasing them on the market, regardless of whether they end up incurring a loss or a profit based on the current market share price."


https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/lendersellshare.asp

If there is little to no short selling going on in this name there is going to be no epic short squeeze. But on the other hand...

Thoughts?