Short interest in InterOil stock hit an all-time high.

[Palm]

This info says this is a record short interest but some historians here may be able to recall; I though at one time the short interest was in the 15-20 million share range. STP don't you have that somewhere? I could be wrong but I think I remember that very high amount from the past somewhere.

[admin]

Well, as far as I know 11M could very well be a record, I don't recall 15-20M shorts. I do recall 6M undelivered shares though (June 08) and I'm not 100% sure whether these were included in the short count back then (I suppose so, but not sure). If not, then it could have been higher back then.

Here is the situation. The shorts:
- Do not believe IOC can get a deal, or
- They believe IOC can only get a very bad deal, so bad it's not accreditive to the share price, or
- They're shorting more to keep a lid on things and prevent a run-up even before any deal announcement.

None of this makes a whole lot of sense to me but I don't see any other logical option.

IOC clearly believes it can get a deal and even a disappointing one largely de-risks the project and set the time ticker to monetization in motion, not to mention accelerated exploration. Which leaves option three, but that's of the "when in hole, stop digging" kind..

[Palm]

I did a quick search on Yazoo and saw a reference by Tusker or another historian from back in 2007 or so and he said something in reference to the short interest being down to 12.5 million or so. Not sure if there's a history somewhere but something is in the memory bank of a much higher short interest at some point. No biggie. Just hope they fry at whatever level.

[sfiaes]

"I continue to hear from multiple trusted sources that short of a total company buyout, the shorts have no fear of IOC in the near term."

Tarules,

I think it is important to remember that the "shorts" are not a monolithic force acting in unison.

Much like the "longs" their numbers are made up of various entities with differing levels of conviction and capital.

After four extraordinarily profitable months, things haven't gone so well for them the last few weeks, including this recent raid which was recouped by the longs in one day's trading.

All it takes, is for a million or two of the 11.4 mil short to get antsy, and the stock will fly. They have already given back almost 20% from the low. A couple more points and we will start hitting a lot of stop loss orders.

WA mentioned that there is a large buyer accumulating shares, perhaps when he is done he will put in a few buy at the market orders to get things going.

[jake990037]

WA mentioned that there is a large buyer accumulating shares, perhaps when he is done he will put in a few buy at the market orders to get things going.

He did? Maybe I missed something but that's the first confirmation from that quarter I'm aware of. And that's big, and encouraging. I wonder how long ago you heard that--but I'll understand if that's more detail than you feel comfortable giving.