Huge difference between legit shorts and naked shorts...
Many suggest that the ftd data doesn’t support a large short position... and to a point—I agree... the ftd data does not support a massive legit short position. although the ftd data is VERY bizarre at the moment with strings of days greater than 50% short volume.
But the problem is that, ftd data is not necessarily inclusive of a naked position-- a fact agreed upon by the sec and dtcc themselves, as a function of proprietary trading. An amazingly ironic caveat that allows for big foot to actually exist, without anyone ever being able *prove* he’s alive. (if a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it... does it still make a noise?)
So why would this naked position NOT be covered at these levels?
Umm… how could it without a massive appreciation in the pps thus nullifying the current level? I don’t disagree that prior to the suspension, volume here supported a “float” that was easily 2B shares. But if there are only 700mm to 1B in actual O/S... then the only way to cover would be a massive buy-in by the firms involved. The first couple of trades might go through at this level, but once ‘firm B’ figured out that that ‘firm A’ was making a move to cover, a bidding war by all the entities involved would ensue in a way that very few have witnessed. Chaos mostly.
so there is really no cheap way to cover at this point.
Is that what is going on here? At this point it seems reasonable to believe that both a naked position exists AND that there were some shananagins going on with the share structure. The financials show that at least 267mm RM shares were 144’s …. But its not clear to me that ALL the RM shares were restricted—basically there could be two separate tranches of RM’s; r144’s and non-144’s. IF that’s the case, then legally, some of the RM’s could have been floated—just not the original 267mm (of which, 133mm have been retired at this point).
What is pretty clear, is that some of these problems are being quietly cleaned up at the moment. The trading dynamic over the last 90 days is anything but rational. Pikes involvement is not seemingly rational either and yet, here they are with a 17 Million dollar investmen... very interesting to me, given the malaise.... and the consideration that they have ‘averaged down’ on a whim like some kind of anxiety ridden day-trader is laughable. With that kind of money, their involvement is a calculated one.
What is also clear to me, is that there are a number of folks here that are somehow compelled to dedicate every waking moment to dissuade interest in spng... that is sooo odd to me... not even Goodwill or the Salvation Army work that hard to *help* people... Tells me that *somebody* other than Pike has an inordinate amount of money on the line here and they will stop at nothing to protect THEIR *investment*...
HG>
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