via Bloomberg - Staggering Short Position

You might be able to say that Bloomberg has its facts wrong and that the Key Statistics page has a major factual error that can blithely be ignored. But I would say that as long as the commercial banking sector engages in massive leverage and swaps trading, then you can assume that these crazy numbers make sense.

If Kinross can have a ~200% short position(which has since declined to 68%) on its shares, then a crazy number like this makes actual sense, considering that the GBN.V share price is trading at half of its book value, with no value to the profitable mining project and no value to immediately available gold reserves.

The takeaway from something like this is that commercial traders generating equity swaps retain their voting rights even though they may have sold shares without first owning them. What that means is that even if you wanted to defend against an hostile takeover, you would have no hope of voting contrarily. I take this as a sign that a hostile bid is probably in the cards.

One way out for GBN.V is to pay a dividend, because the shareholders will likely hold onto their shares, rather than dump them.

Shares Short (% prior month) - 1,164.7550%

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GBN:CN/key-statistics

Financial Post

Every junior miner out there with viable projects are facing dilution of their shares with ever bigger startup costs, and dubious grade controls. There aren't many gold producers that have managed to meet with guidance.

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/06/14/juniors-staggering-mine-development/

-F6