Replies to post #613 on Shorts Exposed

[patchman]

Worst part about the quality of data is that corporate frauds engaging in pump and dumps are now using this information to convince shareholders that short sellers are driving the market own when they are the sellers selling paper and having the trades marked short because they paper hasn't cleared.

Spongetech is a perfect example of this where the short volume on a daily basis is huge but the FTD's and bi-monthly short interest reports don't support the daily short volume numbers. while this implies that it is not massively shorted, some foolish investors have opined otherwise because they do not understand the information.

On Feb 26, 2010 SPNG was shorted 43% of the total trade volume while the average of 2310 OTCBB and Pink sheet companies was 46%. Somehow SPNG shareholders want to believe that their stock is under attack when they are trading below average short positions based on the data. When this is pointed out investors run from the raw data that makes up this number.

The point I am trying to make.

[Dragonwing]

Exactly, it is one number, and the only way to join that total is to be marked as Z, C, or P

There's a few reasons for the variance of all the numbers

Certain OTC transactions (e.g., riskless principal and agency transactions where one member is acting on behalf of another member) are reported to FINRA in related tape and non-tape reports. Tape reports are submitted to FINRA for public dissemination by the appropriate exclusive Securities Information Processor (‘‘SIP’’), while non-tape reports are submitted to FINRA, but are not submitted to the SIP for public dissemination.

FINRA will not be including non-tape reports in either the daily short sale volume file or the monthly short sale transaction file. Accordingly, in those instances where the short sale indicator is only included in the related non-tape report, the short sale data published in the daily and monthly files may be under-inclusive. Similarly, the published figures will not include odd lots since these transactions are not disseminated to the consolidated tape.

Once the Daily Short Sale Volume File is made publicly available at the end of each trading day, FINRA notes that users of such data should not expect the daily and monthly data to reconcile because, among other things, monthly transaction data will include reporting through the end of FINRA transaction reporting hours that terminate as late as 8:00 p.m., while daily volume reports will only include volume reported during regular trading hours.

FINRA will not incorporate trading information into the daily short sale volume file that has not been executed and reported within the trading day. While members generally are required to report trades in equity securities to FINRA within 90 seconds, a firm could improperly delay reporting of short sales until well after the close, which would result in the under-reporting of over-the-counter short sale volume.

Further, FINRA will not retroactively apply ‘‘as of’’ and ‘‘reversal’’ transactions to update the daily statistics.