Nouveau Holdings, Ltd. (NHLI)

[Captain Black Bob Blanco]

The 31st is just the pay date deadline. Anything the shorts were going to do regarding the divy , would already be done, in my opinion.
If you are short as of the ex-dividend date, you are liable to pay the dividend to the person whose shares you have borrowed to make your short sale. That would be Jan. 11th, I believe, which is the execution date, or the 16th which is the record date.

There is no pre-determined limit to how long you can keep your short position open. Technically, you could be forced to cover at any time, but typically, having the shares you have borrowed called back is unusual.

Days to cover is just a ratio to figure out how many days it will take short sellers to cover their positions if positive news about the company lifts the price.(It doesn't mean that they have to buy the shares at that time.) It's based on the short interest# of shares, divided by the avg. daily volume.

Say SPAH has a short interest of 75 million shares, while the average daily volume of shares traded is 70 million. 75,000,000/70,000,000= 1.07 days for all of the short sellers to cover their positions.
The higher the ratio, the longer it will take to buy back the borrowed shares.
Typically, if the days to cover stretch past eight or more days, covering a short position could prove difficult.


Not sure if that answers your question correctly or not.