shorts, page-732

After all the talks about this so-called "arbitrage" via SOA swap, I thought I'd do a quick number crunch to see if the STX/TPD volume stacks up.

Since 1/8 when TPD came out of trading halt and confirmed the talk...

	Total STX Transacted Since 1/8/23	516,208,980
1	Total TPD Transacted Since 1/8/23	363,056,762
2	Transacted TPD Converted to STX	175,283,805
3	Delta	340,925,175

Some of the traded volumes would have been churning (a very small portion of which I am responsible for). If we assume there was no churning in TPD and that all TPD shares traded are being held to be converted to STX (which is possible but unlikely), while 50% of STX shares have simply been churned, it still leaves a net delta of 170mn shares. According to shortman, there is a total STX short of 132mn. So if we deduct the short sold position from the net delta, it leaves about 38mn unaccounted for, which is a relatively small number relative to the total no of STX shares traded since 1/8.

My takeaway is that while there is a possible link between the no of STX shorts relative to the no of TPD shares traded in that the total no of STX shorts can be covered by the no of TPD shares traded, it is a very loosely-coupled relationship. This is because there has been a far greater no of STX shares being traded for reasons other than the so-called arbitrage swap. Whether the excess traded volume in STX can simply be pinned down to churning or net selling as a result of the shorting is also highly subjective and open to interpretation.

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