Shorted, page-14

Perhaps a few things to keep in mind:

The major shorting comes form institutions - and they don't run on a single period, but the average of long runs of shorts, so they cover their risk by their entry time - hence they continue to short after the price starts to rise.

When a share is repurchased by a shorter, it is not necessarily used to cover an existing short, it can be held off (like a long position) and returned months later to cover the short after a series result is assessed. This can mess up daily figures, as shorts can be reported closed months after the buys were executed.

Small time shorters run in packs behind the big guys, and panic fast when the sp changes. This leads to some of the fluctuation you see, the bigger players don't tend to produce the hysterical jumps - they are insured against changes by their previous short/long holdings.

I would be extremely cynical regarding the figures you see on the ASX - they are just a percentage of what actually happens - only what the instos want you (and more importantly the junior shorters) to see.

I don't think these levels will change much until we see the annuals - then they will run back down (for one reason or another ) until they normalise. I'm not letting them worry me too much.

Vocus just needs to concentrate on getting this ship sailing straight and true, the rest of it will look after itself.