the battle

The shorting game and the anger/frustration it causes many holders is simply a consequence of a psychological battle between rational conviction aqnd irrational fear. Most long term holders have a firm understanding of this stock; they know the risks; they have a handle on the anaysist's valuations and the assumptions built into them; they know of tLYC's debt position and its likely near future earnings. On the other hand,shorters are not "the other side of the bet". They are not rationally putting a contrary position. Most actually believe in the fundamantals and likely future direction of LYC. What the shorter are actually doing is using control over large quantitiies of shares to instil fear and doubt into the minds of holders by driving prices down. This is coupled with discreet unresearched fear-mongering on sites such as this (plus strategic use of media misreporting eg Bloomberg's delay story a couple of months back). The shorters know they can use this strategy to pick off leveraged investors and they will definitely do this because they have the financial resources to do so. If they can also psychologically outwit unleveraged holders, all the better for them.

The moral of the story is for investors not to be overly leveraged and to have a firm grip and understanding of the real risks and true value of your investment. Then, when shorters seek to instil fear and doubt, you are psycholgically prepared to withstand the battle. You could do this simply by not selling or by selling a portion and then buying back in lower. Unfortunately, with the latter,you may be able to pick us some free shares but you will also be assisting the shorters in undermining confidence. Nonetheless, each to their own.