I believe your shares can be borrowed if your broker holds the certificate for your shares. If you hold the certificate in your possession physically than they cannot be borrowed. The draw back of holding your certificate is when you want to sell your shares you would then have to resubmit your certificate to a broker and your broker would have to then enter it back into their system. The process may take a few days; so when a run occurs you may very well miss the boat. There may be a way to sell shares and sign over certificates when physically holding the documents but I'm not familiar on how that works in the public market.
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