The Brains Trust, page-33

Hi guys,

Congrats on yet another great thread in 2016 and wishing a very happy 2017 to all XSO forum readers.

I have a query that I asked on 2 HC forums but no one was able to answer, and hence thought of asking it to the Brains trust on XSO, one of HC’s premier forums. I hope one of you can help out.

The question is about data on Shortman. My understanding was that “gross shorts” reported by Shortman was new shorts for the day (it is always positive and hence makes sense), while the chart they show, updates net position inclusive of shorts covered (New shorts - shorts covered). I assumed it as net, as it would not make much sense showing aggregate position of new shorts without ones covered, and I also assumed the 4 day delay was because of that.

I’m not sure and would be happy to be corrected.

Taking a closer look with one example – that of SYR

http://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=syr

Gross shorts on December 22 was 527,761 while a whole extra % (1.05% to be exact) seems to be added to the chart on this date. Short position on Dec 22 shows as 12.65% while it was 11.6% one day earlier.

Now 1.05 % (added in chart on Dec 22) of capital of 263 million shares would be around 2.6 million shares. So something does not add up (2.6 million net as per chart vs 527K gross as per separate data below??) and I’m not sure as to exactly what the data represents, as ideally, I would assume that gross shorts would always be more than net.

Very happy to be corrected by anyone more familiar.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who has the answer and kind enough to share it.
Cheers