MMs short by at least 26m shares11 Aug 2023 11:15
Here is where the fun starts.
I have been scratching my head with the share price movement and patterns of trades since the court hearing on 26th, wondering with so little free float, how is this going to play out on the run up to official RTO target announcement. One thing is certain, no new shares have yet to be printed or even hinted at to the brokers.
I've downloaded all published trades since 21st July til last nights close.
Buy driven 128,028,719
Sell driven 113,671,064
Unknown 42,592,688 (30m of which traded between 8:44 and 12:42 on day ITS came back from suspension pushing prices from 2.8p to 5p with no published bid/offer. price settled at 3.5p by the time MMs were back publishing a bid/offer)
I estimated at least 27m of the unknown trades are buy driven. leaving 15m taken from the offer.
As of close yesterday I suspect MMs have sold to the market approx 26m more shares than they have received leaving them short more than the free float.
Using the SP for each trade, MMs are currently up around £800k but need to use some of this to balance books. If they can get the stock back for under 3.07p, they're in the black. If not, into the red. So they will aim to churn this stock as far under 3p as possible.
If new board don't issue new equity, there is definitely a short position bigger than the free float MMs need to convince holders to let go of shares.
If they don't, will MMs push themselves into a short squeeze with the help of more retail interest??