EnsorDoone this is great question about naked shorts since there...

EnsorDoone this is great question about naked shorts since there are several different kinds of shorts depending on your portfolio situation. Last short I did is my all time favorite short play, the 'short against the box' where i borrow my own long stock,with large gain, from myself and sell short the appreciated stock I am long with a big gain so as to lock in the gain on the long without taking a taxable profit this tax year. Taxable gain only recognized when I cover short. Naked short ing a stock is different in that the shorter is not borrowing the stock to deliver, limiting amount of stock to be sold to outstanding float vs. naked short where amount of stock that can be sold is not limited by float but is unlimited and shorted could potentially sell more stock than exist like fractional reserve lending, naked shorter create new supply of stock by selling.