I never did reply.
You are probably right regards hypothecation, but its not as you originally said " This borrow, short, return collateral shares has been going on with HAS, as many other stocks, for years. It's not a sign of confidence it's how funds short a sick dog stock...".
There is no new shorting of HAS.The shorts reported at ASIC have not increased. There is no increased shorting of the stock. Hypothecation indeed likely. Possibly a wonderful MS OTC derivative out there with some subsidiary of MS requiring lending/borrowing of collateral - who knows - but no actual new shorting of this vs the market, or it would have to be reported to ASIC.
Morgan Stanley, the umbrella entity, HAS been making on market purchases of HAS, excuse the pun. Whether its then doing some wash through, short/long under some omnibus arrangement not clear, but no net new shorting occurring in the mkt. A massive 9 million shares would show up pretty clearly:
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