General discussion, page-1730

It seems to me that the shorter has secured for itself a fresh source of shares to sell by the increase in the size of its capping positions. There was a marked fall off in the capping positions after the debacle of the 380,000 capping position collapsing in twenty minutes on the 3rd August and it was forced to buy back its position at much higher prices. The capping positions fell after that to modest amounts. I noticed that this appeared to have changed yesterday by the increase in the number of capping positions and the size of them. (I bought some shares from the shorter yesterday.)

It may be that it is using clients money to bail itself out again, but I noticed that the counterparty to the disposal of the ETFs shares was described as "in kind" so there may appear to be a number of players wishing to provide shares for the shorter notwithstanding the tightness of the register. I notice that after the debacle of the 3rd August there was coincidentally no disposal of shares from the ETF as the shorter attempted to cap the price rise until the 11th August.

It may be that they did not read HC (or at least don and Onearmman after midnight) and I have noticed that when news breaks it takes a while (2 days approx) for it to hit the wider market.

Notwithstanding the speculative machinations above I would not want to be short 1,853,312 shares right now. If Jamie is reading this in the company's interest it is unequivocally time for a buyback now after the settlement and it is not necessary to wait for gold to be produced before doing so. I note that WHC is using its massive cashflow to fund a 32.5% buyback on a P/E of 1.5 EBIT and it could be that KCN could be in a similar position. A buyback is necessary to stabilise the register. The shorter has been determining the price of the stock for a very long time now causing misery for long term investors such as Oldtimer in what may laughingly be called the "market". Additionally, failing a nuclear war, IMHO the shares may never be cheaper than they are today. It would be nice to be subsidised by the shorter.

My 2 cents