October 22, 2009
In the course of our work on short sales, we have uncovered preliminary empirical results that may be very useful to the SEC in its continuing efforts to regulate short selling and especially naked shorting. Our newest work in this area utilizes the SEC data on failed-to-deliver shares. We assume those numbers reflect shorting 3 trading days earlier than the date reported for the failed-to-deliver shares (given the 3-day delivery requirements). Is that a correct assumption? Also are the prices in your table with that data the closing price on the shown date, or something else?
Sincerely,
Austin Murphy