I knew that companies could issue stock but I didn't know that brokers could issue the companys stock as well, and without even an IPO process.
Brokers selling shares they don't own is a whole new dynamic (to me). I wonder if they do it with equities like QCOM. They could come up with a huge amount of capital(to loan out at interest) if they sold 1.4x their own and their customers 40 million QCOM shares. It would amount to about $500,000,000, and the possibility of getting squeezed would be small.