RE:RE:Shorts having to pay the dividendIn general you are correct. However I learnt about fake shorts with another stock and no longer do I trust published numbers of short shares. What happens is two washtrading partners (lets' call them Partner A, Partner B and Partner C) do the following: on a slow trading day Partner A borrows millions of shares and sells them to Partner B, sometimes it happens on obscure exchanges. Then Partner B can sell these shares to Partner C and Partner C can sell these shares back to Partner B at the same time creating fake volume as well as lowering the prices of shares. Technically these millions of shares are shorted but in reality not really. They can always cover as Partner B or Partner C (or combination of both) can always sell the shares back to partner A at any price they want. Such technique kills several birds with one stone when the stock is washtraded. They control the direction of SP fluctuation, they increase the volume, they increase number of inicated short shares to the public and perhaps several others. That is why you can't really trust as the schemes become more and more sophisticated.