Cheers Biggsy. I don't normally put too much stock in the technical arguments for share price rises or falls. And when I purchased I wasn't looking at the shorts was just looking at value and risk. However in this case it is the largest short position I've seen on an ASX listed stock. As of 24/08/15 it increased again to over 131 million shares, and I suspect that the short position has increased further since then but I will wait until the asic reports become available. It now means that only 77.5% of the available shares can be sold (until the shorts close their position), and at some point 22.5% HAS to be bought to close out the shorts. I suppose that if there is some sort of shock announcement (I hope not!) the shorts could potentially make a gain from these levels, however it is already quite keenly priced and such an announcement could cause the stock lenders to call in the stock, which may make for a technical bounce in the share price by the shorters covering, even on negative news (this happened recently with SGH). The bigger this short position gets, the more downside protection is built in by future shorts covering. This isn't the reason I bought in however, there is a solid yield, moderate debt levels, and it is below book value, so appears to be good value here.
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