Ann: Webinar Registration for Q4 FY24 Financial Results, page-167

it does increase the number of shares available to be sold.
If no short selling was allowed, then i could have my shares sitting in the bottom drawer, waiting for the LT price catalysts.
Now that short selling is allowed, I can offer my shares to be short sold, by someone who does not have enough shares to sell.

• eg short seller owns 1,000 shares.
• they dont like the company? then can sell their 1,000 and go on their way.
• so the shares on sell side will be 1,000.
• given short seller has access to borrowed shares...they can add another 2,000 to the amount they can sell
• so the sell side is now 3,000 shares.

now you might say, weasels with good lawyers can work out another way of achieving the same outcome if short selling was not allowed.

Getting back to the cost of short selling etc.
If my objective was to buy/get control of a listed asset for 50% of its true future value...then i could spend 10% of that asset value to make sure there was no wayward appreciation of the share price. so if i lose 100M on shorts, and end up buying something at a 50% discount? wgaf? im up 400m.