Solarbat,I also do not have a lot of knowledge on shorting, so...

Solarbat,

I also do not have a lot of knowledge on shorting, so the following is just my opinion on what is happening.

The top 40 shareholders in CLQ hold approximately 75% of the shares. I do not know whether the shares lent for shorting come from some of those holders, but I would imagine so, in particular those held in nominee accounts by some of the large corporates. I do agree that most investors are long on the stock (myself being one of them). We quite often have days where over 20% of the shares traded are sold by shorters, let's say 1 in every 5 shares traded. If you had been watching the trading over the near term, you would have noticed that when a price point is taken out, whether on the buy or sell side, numerous bids / offers would come in at the same instant. I believe those bids / offers are computer generated. Small sells hoping for traders to join them, so that they can be taken out by an accumulator. When traders selling down have almost exhausted the bids, quite often a small volume trade would take it down to the next level, at which time numerous bids would instantly come in at the previous level, so that traders can sell to them, as they retain the next bid in queue.
I think the idea at the moment is to either sell down, or accumulate at bid and that either course is being taken. Sell down to traders who think they have picked the bottom, only to have them forced into a stop-loss sell further down the track, or accumulate so they can push for a pump / dump - rinse and repeat. In effect the shorters can make money each time there is a pump / dump, which is what I think is happening at present, as it seems we have rebounded from our 52 week low of 26.5c It may be that the bots are working in conjunction with the shorters.
I think some traders will give up on trading CLQ as they get burnt trying to defeat their opposition. A bit like gambling - do it often enough, and you will almost certainly come out behind.
As mentioned above, I am here for the long term, I trust our management and believe that we won't get any deal until such time as we can get a great deal. I am prepared to wait - we have the goods.
You may find that your Nickel stocks which aren't shorted give you a better return (if you are lucky) as you will only be competing against other traders and genuine investors. Whatever - Good luck with it.