Ann: Change in substantial holding, page-12

1. I wouldn't read much into one day's move in the short position. These figures are notoriously dodgy and I look at them for longer term trends.

2. We sometimes see big one day moves like this which reverse themselves in subsequent days - I'd currently think that is likely in this case.

3. The reason I think it is likely to reverse is because it doesn't fit with the total volume traded in the past week - indeed the volume of the past 6 days has slipped below the 1m per day for the first time in a long time - running at a very low 800,000 or so for past 6 days. The purported reduction in the net short of 3.6m would have been almost the entire market volume of the past 5 trading days - which is absurd. Or, allowing for 50% of daily volume being churn, it is at least 8 trading days volume and assumes there are no other "real" buyers.

4. So, it clearly doesn't make sense that an extra 3.6m were bought in the market to cover shorts even over the past 2 weeks, let alone in one day. If that amount of short had been bought back we would've seen a big rise in the share price - given the low volumes traded at present.

5. It may be that someone had borrowed stock to short, and reported it, but hadn't actually got around to selling it in the market and now they've returned it, or that someone has made an error (including reporting too many shorted in the past and now rectifying it) or that someone is lying and trying to manipulate the price, or maybe Shortman or their data source is in error.

6. When this sort of "out of the blue" change in the short position has happened in the past and it doesn't gel with recent market volumes or moves in the share price, it has tended to reverse itself within a coupla days - let's wait and see!