RE: re shortsNaked shorts are technically illegal and as such one can only suspect their presence as no official data exists for obvious reasons! It is accepted however that if a large short position is present in a stock such as we had then chances are that naked shorts are often used to feed and protect the official position. I did here that the NYSE has approximately US$6 billion of 'fail to delivers' every trading day, many being simply clerical errors but many not.
Here's the official stats which shows a dramatic reduction in the official short position, unfortunately the official position would have been covered by stock/warrants from previous placement and consequently had minimal impact being an off market transaction. Whether the naked shorts are left exposed nobody knows, either way what's been dragging us down for such a long time is undoubtedly unwinding and not before time.
https://infoventure.tsx.com/TSXVenture/TSXVentureHttpController?GetPage=ShortSummary&SECURITY_ID=216077&MARKET_ID=CDNX&SEC_SYM_SID=1&HC_FLAG1=Y&HC_FLAG1=Y