Ann: Pit Inventory for Nueva Sabana Mine, page-88

Hi Appu

re short selling, there's a couple of things here, generally in the ASX you cannot participate in a "naked short sell" (think GameStop where more than 100% of the SOI was short sold), ie the shares being short sold have to be loaned from another holder, so in the case of a large broker they can facilitate it by borrowing off their other clients and providing those shares to the short seller (that will be in the fine print of the Ts and Cs if you go back and check it out on your broker platform).

my understanding is that Short Selling is 'supposed' to be reported to the ASX, but it is largely an honour system, and one way to get around it is to account for short sold shares off book in dark pools. The Trading platofrm that retail holders get access to is only one of those, industry has access to other layers, refer here: https://www.asx.com.au/markets/trade-our-cash-market/asx-equities-trading it is openly mentioned about the dark pools.

So a few things to check and do if you think that is really happening in the holdings you are on:

• is there a reportable short position on your shares in the daily ASX files that get submitted (4 days in arrears) or as are summarised in other websites about Short Sold ASX shares
• transfer your holdings off of a large broker platform and onto a smaller one, I would categorise Commsec as a large platform and something like Stake as a smaller one, both have CHESS sponsored holdings, Stake a little less functionality in regards to condtional orders but at a flat $3 per trade. you tranfer holdings via an Off Market Transfer (OMT) which all brokers have to abide by and if you transfer t the same owner (beneficial holder) it is not considered a sale for CGT purposes (but get yor Tax accountant to confirm that)

Why does an Off Market Transfer give you some sense of control over things ? Well you are reducing the large broker's internally available shares that they can borrow off themselves to facilitate the short sales that they may be making.

Anyway something interesting, not sure if you knew about the different levels of trading platforms or not, the biggest dodgy and advantage offerred to insiders of the broking community is that they can rais the mid-point orders and effecitively jump the top of the queue, for example a Buy 12.0 cents versus a Sell 12.5cents, the other platforms allow for aeither a Buy or a Sell to come in at 12.25cents and sit there picking off all the retail orders that come in thinking they're going to match off the 12.0 or 12.5 side

in support of the above using AAU as an example

no recent Short Sales having been reported for AAU (this is 4 days delayed data though)






and yet there WERE a small parcel of 120K shares short sold as at yesterday, $2400 worth




I have to say this looks suspicious in that they only stand to profit a grand total of $2400 is AAU goes all the way to zero and winds up shop !! So I would think these are more about trying to flush out stop losses and the weak hands of most retail holders