The Battle of GameStop

Re:The Battle of GameStop by riffraff on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @10:37AM (#25916999)

> The floating shares are fewer than the shorted shares. Even if all the floating shares were bought, there are not enough shares to cover the short's position.

that's not necessarily true.

Quoting Matt Levine[0]

> There are 100 shares. A owns 90 of them, B owns 10. A lends her 90 shares to C, who shorts them all to D. Now A owns 90 shares, B owns 10 and D owns 90—there are 100 shares outstanding, but 190 shares show up on ownership lists. (The accounts balance because C owes 90 shares to A, giving C, in a sense, negative 90 shares.) Short interest is 90 shares out of 100 outstanding. Now D lends her 90 shares to E, who shorts them all to F. Now A owns 90, B 10, D 90 and F 90, for a total of 280 shares. Short interest is 180 shares out of 100 outstanding. No problem! No big deal! You can just keep re-borrowing the shares. F can lend them to G! It's fine.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-25/the-ga...

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Re:The Battle of GameStop by PartiallyTyped on Tuesday January 26, 2021 @01:08PM (#25919171)

Sure. What if they can't borrow them though? What if they are owned by retail/institutions/board? Some conservative estimates put WSB holding 7-8% with some people owning .2-0.4% and that is without the lurkers.

Same thing happened to Volkswagen, only 1% of the shares was available for purchase and they had to close their positions.

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