Wow my math was off. So if 43 million shares have traded in those dates, how many of those were covers?
This is where the NSS detection via an audit by the company bothers me.
Let's use my company as an example. It is not publically traded, but let's suppose it is.
An investor buys 100 shares from someone who holds 200 shares. That person's cert is split in my company book. The original owner's book entry is retired, and two new entries and certificates must be issued. One for the original owner reflecting 100 shares, and one for the new owner reflecting 100 shares. In my book, I have 400 shares accounted for, but only 200 shares exisit. There was no NSS, but someone could look at the book entries and assume that there are air shares out there based on percieved trading of 400 shares.
Edit ~ For the Record: This is exactly how book entries for my company stock are handled.