Lol I'm not making a spreadsheet.I guess a simple example would...

Lol I'm not making a spreadsheet.

I guess a simple example would be a super fund that is required to keep a certain amount of holdings, commensurate with the dollar value of the contributions made by its contributors, that also lends some of those holdings for shorting purposes. After the super fund has lent them, those shares remain on their books as being held, yet the short seller sells those shares into the market, and a third party buys them. At that point, those shares are on the super fund's books as being held (even though they've been lent), yet the third party that bought the shares that were shorted also owns them. While the super fund cannot sell the lent shares until the short seller covers their position (whether at their own leisure or because the super fund has recalled them, forcing them to cover), there are still technically two parties that simultaneously own those shares. The justification for this is that shares in a particular company are fungible (i.e. one share is the same as another), however it results in an artificial increase in the total number of shares held by all holders of that particular stock.

What I'd like to see is shares that are lent for shorting purposes not being allowed to still be classed as being held by the lender, as I think that would change the overall dynamic of short selling, in particular the willingness of entities to lend their shares to short sellers.

In any case, all this is just the result of my efforts to synthesize various pieces of information I've picked up into some sort of coherent framework, in order to try and understand how it all works. Wouldn't surprise me if I'm missing something, but that's my understanding as of now. Happy to be corrected, and I won't keep boring everyone with any more posts on this topic lol.