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Thank you.

For all I am desperately trying to understand, your short but succinct explanation was one of the best.

I still am confused about this “borrowing” stock and all that is involved.

So far I have listened to Dan Bongino and Rush Limbaugh’s explanation. They were good but I still don’t understand it.

I am reading everything I can on it.

When you buy a stock, you don't get a physical stock certificate. You broker gets confirmation of your "ownership" and maintains it for you. Those same brokers maintain Stock Loan Departments which are nothing more than stocks available for loan at a price.

If I want to short a stock, I contact a stock loan department to borrow it. If I approve of the financial terms, I borrow it and sell it hoping that, when I have to return it to the Stock Loan Department, I'm buying it back at a lower price.

Here's how it works

You are a vile, piece of shit hedge fund manager and want to make money off a company failing. Say, widgets. But you don't own any stock in widgets. You borrow the stock from someone at, say $10. They give you the share of stock and you give them an IOU for one share of stock. You immediately sell that borrowed stock for $10 to someone else.

Here's the rub..... You now have $10 that is not really yours. You sit on it for a bit and when widget stock goes down to, say, $7 you take that $10 and buy a share of widget stock. You then pay back the person who gave you the initial share of stock. But you don't pay the $10, you pay with the share of stock that is now worth $7. You made $3 on that sale.

BUT, in this case, the borrowed shares INCREASED in value to, say, $15. So in order to pay back the borrowed share (which you got $10 for) You now have to pay $15 to pay that share back to the lender. You LOSE $5 in that transaction. That is what is happening now. Investors are jacking up the price of a stock and it is costing these hedge funds massive amounts of money to pay back.