I don't mean to insult anyone but here is the long and short of it.
First I don't see what you are calling a "deficit". The simple explanation of what you see after entering in the stock symbol is the short interest. BORK had 100900 shares short as of the last month end. That is the number of shares someone sold that they did not own.
Short selling is normally done on margin. Let's say IBM was at $100. A short seller thinks IBM price will decline to $80. If the investor sells short 10,000 shares at 5% margin he invests $50,000 but is liable for $1 Million. If the stock does go down to $80 he buys the stock at $80 to cover the short position and keeps the difference of $200K. If the stock starts to go up, it only has to move up $5 before the investment of $50K is totally lost. Before it moves up very much the investor's broker will issue a margin call. At a price of $102 the original investment is worth only $30K. The investor will get a margin call to up his investment or the broker will close out the position. The broker will not take on the risk.
Short squeeze is all about increase in price with a large short interest compared to daily volume. When the price goes up the shorts want out. You and I are buying because of good news at the same time the shorts have to buy to cover so the price goes up even faster and often overshoots the real value because of the short covering. If there is not enough volume the short positions cannot cover immediately and the price goes up very rapidly (called the short squeeze).
That is why I like to see occasional price spikes to force the shorts to cover and get out. The shorts' ultimate goal is to drive a company to failure because that is when they make the most money. Many a company has been driven out of business because the shorts keep selling, the stock price is depressed, the business can't raise capital because of the depressed price, and the owners (us)lose value in our investment. There is nothing positive about the effects of having your stock sold short!
With BORK short interest at 100K I am not too concerned yet. However, this figure is only reported at each month end. A good play I have seen is when really good news is expected an investor purchases twice the number of shares he really wants and then sells off half of them in a day or two after the shorts have covered and the price falls off some.
