Mike The Pike Productions Inc (fka MIKP)

[imiloa]

TenKay, fwiw, naked short selling is def a thing.

many many years ago, i think it was the ceo of overstock (the company)
who bought back more shares on the open market
than the company had authorized
and then petitioned the sec to give a rat's ass,
which, iirc, didn't pan out for him.

prolly because a majority of sec agents
retired early to be cushy high-paid consultants for hedge funds.
i'm sure that has nothing to do with kickbacks
for decades of "service"
looking the other way... ;)

i don't have links for the overstock debacle handy.

but here's another case,
and there are many more similar credible reports of such.

https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1320xkhl0443w/naked-shorting-the-curious-incident-of-the-shares-that-didnt-exist

[[ IN FEBRUARY THIS year, Michigan-based entrepreneur Robert Simpson decided to see what would happen if he
bought the entire stock of one company. Using a single broker, within a couple of days Simpson had paid a little
over $5,000 for 1,285,050 shares in OTC bulletin board property-development company Global Links. According
to Simpson, these shares were delivered into his account shortly afterwards. Yet the following day 37,044,500
Global Links shares were traded on the bulletin board. The next day, 22,471,000 shares were traded. On neither
day had Simpson traded a single Global Link share, he insists.
And events surrounding Simpson's investments became yet more confusing. Global Links had only ever issued
1,158,064 shares. Simpson had managed to acquire 126,986 shares that did not exist. How he had managed to be
sold more shares than were in issuance is exactly the question Simpson hoped his foray would raise. ]]