Are investors holding 200% of GME shares?
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https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/07/institutional_holdings.asp
How Can Institutional Holdings Be More Than 100%?
Here's an example of one of the most likely causes of distorted institutional holdings percentages. Let's assume Company XYZ has 20 million shares outstanding and Institution A owns all 20 million. In a shorting transaction, institution B borrows five million of these shares from Institution A, then sells them to Institution C. If both A and C claim ownership of the shares shorted by B, the institutional ownership of Company XYZ could be reported as 25 million shares (20 + 5)—or 125% (25 ÷ 20). In this case, institutional holdings may be incorrectly reported as more than 100%.
How Can Institutional Holdings Be More Than 100%?
Here's an example of one of the most likely causes of distorted institutional holdings percentages. Let's assume Company XYZ has 20 million shares outstanding and Institution A owns all 20 million. In a shorting transaction, institution B borrows five million of these shares from Institution A, then sells them to Institution C. If both A and C claim ownership of the shares shorted by B, the institutional ownership of Company XYZ could be reported as 25 million shares (20 + 5)—or 125% (25 ÷ 20). In this case, institutional holdings may be incorrectly reported as more than 100%.
This isn't about institutional holdings.
The above Redditor concludes that institutions may be holding almost 100%, while retail buyers were able to potentially buy another 100%.
He also points to this article on stock counterfeiting and illegal shorting:
http://counterfeitingstock.com/CS2.0/CounterfeitingStock.html
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Basically, another fake 100% long, like some CFD's. (?)
I just googled if any giants has to say anything about it and it's - silence ?
(Buffet, Acman, Dalio, Lynch, Fisher etc.)
Apart from WolfofWallstreet - they're all silent. Weird, isn't it. A major event and all lips shut ?
Thus, maybe the Dozu was right, about running out of shares and things starting to become really weird (smiles)
Bringing this up into paranoid perspective, about this happening with more companies, maybe by a large scale in the whole US market & mixing it with the timing of CCP plans like 2025, that would draw a picture, of why some top figures would want to silent all of this show as fast as possible.
Edit : now this gets crazy/conspiracy/paranoid as far as one can go :
(all marked in white color so one needs to mark it to be able to read it)
Twice as much of shares - twice as much of dividend paid.
The difference tho, that one half of it is legit(real) & another - source unknown - printed ? Drug money ? Money from cryptos ?
Purpose - boost GDP ? Sustain the dollar ?
Reason - to maintain leadership position ? (as long as possible, tho inevitably loosing)
Who knows. Just speculating random nonsenses/having good time.
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https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/01/28/yes-a-stock-can-have-short-interest-over-100-heres/
Round and round shares go
At first glance, it might seem like you could never have more than 100% of a company's shares sold short. Once all the shares have been borrowed, you might think there wouldn't be any more for short-sellers to get.
Indeed, there are U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations designed to prevent what's known as "naked" short selling. With a naked short sale, the broker allows the customer to do a short-sale transaction without actually arranging to borrow the shares beforehand. This can lead to market disruptions, and while there are some exceptions to the regulations, most brokers stop regular retail customers from selling stock short if they can't obtain shares to borrow.
However, even without a naked short sale, it's theoretically possible for short interest to exceed 100%. The reason has to do with the nature of the short-sale transaction itself.
As an example, take a situation involving four investors. Annie owns shares of GameStop, and Annie and her broker have an agreement that allows the broker to lend Annie's shares to short-sellers. It lends them to Bob, who subsequently sells those borrowed shares short in hopes that GameStop's share price will fall.
An investor named Chris ends up buying those borrowed shares from Bob. However, Chris has no way of knowing that those shares have been borrowed from Annie. To Chris, they're just like any other shares.
More importantly, if Chris has the same kind of agreement, then Chris's broker can lend out those shares to yet another investor. Diane, another GameStop bear, can borrow those shares and sell them short.
In this example, the same shares end up getting borrowed and sold twice. The short interest volume these transactions add to the total is twice the number of shares actually involved. You can therefore see that if this happened throughout the market, total short interest would eventually exceed the number of shares outstanding and approach 200%.
This still might seem impossible, and in a sense, it is. But part of the answer lies in the fact that there are investors that don't currently possess actual shares of GameStop but who have the same economic interest as shareholders. They have the right to get back the shares they lent at any time. When you add together the actual shares plus these "synthetic" positions in the stock, the short interest can't exceed 100% of that larger total.
Round and round shares go
At first glance, it might seem like you could never have more than 100% of a company's shares sold short. Once all the shares have been borrowed, you might think there wouldn't be any more for short-sellers to get.
Indeed, there are U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations designed to prevent what's known as "naked" short selling. With a naked short sale, the broker allows the customer to do a short-sale transaction without actually arranging to borrow the shares beforehand. This can lead to market disruptions, and while there are some exceptions to the regulations, most brokers stop regular retail customers from selling stock short if they can't obtain shares to borrow.
However, even without a naked short sale, it's theoretically possible for short interest to exceed 100%. The reason has to do with the nature of the short-sale transaction itself.
As an example, take a situation involving four investors. Annie owns shares of GameStop, and Annie and her broker have an agreement that allows the broker to lend Annie's shares to short-sellers. It lends them to Bob, who subsequently sells those borrowed shares short in hopes that GameStop's share price will fall.
An investor named Chris ends up buying those borrowed shares from Bob. However, Chris has no way of knowing that those shares have been borrowed from Annie. To Chris, they're just like any other shares.
More importantly, if Chris has the same kind of agreement, then Chris's broker can lend out those shares to yet another investor. Diane, another GameStop bear, can borrow those shares and sell them short.
In this example, the same shares end up getting borrowed and sold twice. The short interest volume these transactions add to the total is twice the number of shares actually involved. You can therefore see that if this happened throughout the market, total short interest would eventually exceed the number of shares outstanding and approach 200%.
This still might seem impossible, and in a sense, it is. But part of the answer lies in the fact that there are investors that don't currently possess actual shares of GameStop but who have the same economic interest as shareholders. They have the right to get back the shares they lent at any time. When you add together the actual shares plus these "synthetic" positions in the stock, the short interest can't exceed 100% of that larger total.
Person A owns 70 million shares of GME. Person B borrows those shares through short selling and sells them to Person C. Person A & C are now long 140 million shares, or 200% of shares outstanding.
Normally when you lend someone something, you do not still have it.
Like when you lend your lawnmower to Joe down the street because he needs one and doesn't have it.
When you lend your 1 lawnmower to Joe, there is still only one lawnmower, and only one owner of the lawnmower.
It doesn't become "two lawnmowers" that are owned. It's all a bunch of accounting horseshit.
notice how quiet many of the bigger players have been around here this week? Seems eerie at this point.Basically, another fake 100% long, like some CFD's. (?)
I just googled if any giants has to say anything about it and it's - silence ?
(Buffet, Acman, Dalio, Lynch, Fisher etc.)
Apart from WolfofWallstreet - they're all silent. Weird, isn't it. A major event and all lips shut ?
Thus, maybe the Dozu was right, about running out of shares and things starting to become really weird (smiles)
Bringing this up into paranoid perspective, about this happening with more companies, maybe by a large scale in the whole US market & mixing it with the timing of CCP plans like 2025, that would draw a picture, of why some top figures would want to silent all of this show as fast as possible.
OK, so the balance would be 100% - 100% + 100% = 100%
Though the above suspicion on Reddit is about something more abnormal going on, like creating another x% of shares on paper to be able to short them, plus selling naked calls that don’t support the number of shares issued, and whatever else may be going on. I didn’t get into details but curious if there is more to it, while the long shares may be adding to 300% and after subtracting 100% for short selling you may still get 200%.