Lots to unpack here. First when we say “we own” the float it doesn’t mean there are no shares left. It just means we own the majority of the actually valid shares and an unknown amount of synthetics. We own enough shares that when the shorts start to cover they will have to come to us to buy them.
As of now there’s still enough shares out there to be purchased. On top of the fact that yes people sell everyday. The drops in price we see aren’t just manipulation, it’s people selling shares as well. So they very well could have gotten the shares just from people selling. Or they could have borrowed them. We know there’s still shares available to borrow because they still get more everyday and short interest is still increasing.
I think people are confused on the difference between FTD and shorted shares.
FTD or fails to deliver is when a market maker fails to locate shares from an exercised option. The rules say they have a certain amount of time to find those shares or it becomes a FTD. That list indicates that a certain amount of FTDs had not been covered for a certain amount of time.
This is wholly different from institutions that have taken huge bets on short positions. Those are people who have borrowed shares and sold them into the market. Eventually they have to buy the shares back from the market. This is where “we own the float” comes in. When that “eventually” comes we set the price because there won’t be enough shares for them to buy elsewhere.
