No, not naked shorting. Each party that the 1m shares were borrowed from owned those shares at the time they were borrowed. Naked shorting is just selling shares that the party doing the selling doesn't own, and is often accompanied by a failure to deliver those shares to the buyer. I guess the main point was that with total shorts at 6.8m (as of 3/8), the cumulative total all of shares that are on the books of all holders of ASM is 6.8m shares more than the 142,956,062 that have been issued, hence the number of shares on issue has, for all intents and purposes, been artificially increased by almost 5%. Yes, 6.8m shorted shares must be covered/returned to the lender at some point, however until the short position is covered, those 6.8m shares are technically held held by both the lender, and whoever bought the shorted shares.
Anyway, doesn't matter.
ASM Price at posting:
$4.07 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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