If we can believe ASIC, there were 98.6m outstanding shorts as at 20 June (ASIC's last report).
On 21/22/23 June (Tue/Wed/Thur), ASX reported 14.0m/17.3m/12.2m new shorts. And the LKE turnover was huge on those days, with the ASX+ChiX total figures being 89m/140m/140m. So as a proportion of turnover, the new shorts were fast-declining as last week progressed (15.7%/11.3%/7.9%), having been between 25% & 36% on the preceding four trading days from 15-20 June.
What we don't know until ASIC reports from tomorrow is whether/when the short covering started to kick in. Bearing in mind last Tue/Wed/Thur saw drops of 28.4%/13.4%/16.7% in the share price, it's a little hard to see too much covering (ie buying) on those days. So I'm guessing we may see the overall shorts rise a little, over the 100m mark.
Friday (24 Jun) may be a different story. We'll see from ASX tomorrow how many new shorts were amongst the still very high turnover of nearly 132m (ASX+ChiX), but with the 15% share price rise, maybe that's the start of some concerted covering which hopefully continues this coming week.
But, as I have said variously in the past though, never try to understand or underestimate shorters
LKE Price at posting:
80.5¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)