Ann: Ceasing to be a substantial holder, page-7

You fail to understand just how much these derivatives stabilize SP. Look at the last 6 months of Lynas stock price, and total shorts. I will give two examples. on October 8th there were 22.6M shorts. the SP was 7,61. November 8 the shorts were 27,5 and SP was 9.00. so during this rise 7M shares were shorted this adding of shares stabilized the stock rise preventing big changes in price.
November 8 to now. . on Nov 8 there were 27.5 M shorts outstanding and Stock price was 9.00. 4 days ago dec1 there were 22.5 M shorts out standing and SP was 8.64 So Shorts bought to cover about 5 M shares to cover slowing the drop a lot. Slowing the drop. Shorts want to make money just like you and me. The only way to do that is short low and cover high and that stabilizes the price. Just like regular traders they do make mistakes.

The next one people like to blame iS market makers. Before market makers were allow the big firms charged very high fees reflecting their cost. it was not uncommon to pay $200 ~$300 to trade a 100 shares worth $1000.00. when market making was legalized big brokers and eventual small discount brokers could do trades between clients and from their own reserves and not actually put the order on the exchange FOR AUCTION. All transaction still have to be reported every day. This change dropped commission rapidly and allowed many new discount brokers to come into existence.

"We (the Company and it's owners incl. me) should be able to dictate what our shares are used for, "

Try this and you will be subjected to large fines and maybe jail. Once the company list its stock on a public exchange the stock is governed by rules of the exchange. No one in the company has any control including the BOD. If companies could set rules for their stock, it would be total chaos as each company made its own rules.

I think the rules work well. I do think the US is a little over restrictive on what new & small investors can do, that no longer impacts me very much but I use to hate it. It is a system that has worked well for 150 years. It is not stagnate rules are changed every year To fix real problems that show up. If you do not like it get out but do not try to force your poorly researched ideas on others.

In US you as an individual can control if your shares are shorted or not. Most brokers automatically set up margin accounts Which means brokers can loan your shares to shorters. You can always ask for certain shares not to be available for margin , which means they are not available for shorting.
I suspect AU is the same I do not know and since I do not trade in AU not worth the time to research.

If shorters and market makers could control stok prices as much as people on this board think they do they would have been banned long ago. Do some research on stock and figure out what is moving it not just blame someone that will not take the time to defend themselves from you.