Make them pay!, page-143

If the market was truely logical we would all be making money. Most companies have a percentage of shorts and CVN's shorts at 3.41% of total shares on issue is not remarkable. There are many other highly respectable and profitable companies with short positions greater than CVN. See the shortman site - it's a real eye opener. Even CBA and CSL has shorts. As I see it CVN's main risks are the price of oil and more importantly what it does with the buckets of cash it gets from Dorado oil assuming oil does get back to $50+ pb. CVN's DNA is in exploration and there is a possibility it will use a lot of the cash to drill more wells. These are not cheap and CVN could drill duster after duster. However IMO CVN's skill is knowing where to drill (as shown by its whole drilling program in the Phoenix area where there were few dusters) and spreading its risks by farming out to avoid near death experiences and constant cash raises. Just look at FAR with around 10,000,000,000 shares on issue. It's oil interest in Africa is fantastic but there's a lot of mouths to feed.

CVN's use of amazing computer programs to review old data and undertake new seismic has been awesome and IMO at the heart of its success. CVN is trying to mix it with the big guys but lacks the balance sheet (read cash) to drill numerous wildcat wells. They are taking baby steps to build a modest but highly valuable oil and gas portfolio. The past is littered with oilers shooting for the moon and just crashing down to earth. Too much testosterone and hubris IMO. Anyway back to your point Peter there are those who believe CVN will crash out and/or do the dreaded cash raise and history will probably show we all made money from CVN. I gave up trying to understand shorters long ago but if you are going to take shorts the oil industry is a great place to start. A happy hunting ground of binary bets. I don't think shorters bet the house on 1 stock. I think like most careful investors they have a portfolio of them accepting some will turn ugly. And in summary the CVN's shorters are miles ahead at the moment..... but only on paper. Let's see where we are in 12 months time.