I used the term "coy" to describe your not very substantive answer when I quiried you as I didn't want to relay your actual response from a private message, there was no attempt to characterize your views or person.

It's okay to be angry because most of us are angry at what has transpired over the last couple of years but you were suggesting more. The naked shorting issue has been gone over time and again and still to this day I know no one who has definitive answers. I do know someone who has provided the name of a large hedge fund in the US that they suspect of naked shorting ECU and I assume still AUM but even they admit they have no proof, of course it is supposedly illegal in the US but we all know how much impact that has.

As for Canada, it's still my understanding that naked shorting is not illegal because firms require you declare your short and make settlement 3 days later so the counter party is always looking for settlement of the stock sold if the borrow is not made. Many firms are pretty stringent on this unless it involves warrant exercise, options, etc.

The one very complex area involves using derivatives to in some way mimic a short creating an artificial trade but I no of no instances where this has been applied to individual stocks nor anyone who has experience with such.

As for shorting precious metals stocks the fund are the primary ready source for shorters to borrow stock and anyone who deals with a broker can find out if there is borrow available and how much it costs to borrow. I wish more was known about this controversial subject and everyone has strong views but few have facts. In my own case I'm still not entirely convinced but for sure where there is smoke there is fire and I remain open to being convinced and for sure would like to see the shorts burn.

Those who short stocks and stay with the trade are a different breed and I have meet very few natural shorters in my 30 years of investing. They tend to be dogmatic and once they bite they don't let go until forced. 99% of people aren't made for shorting and few have ever even shorted a stock and if they have it is not for long and the amount is meaningless. The people infesting this precious metals shorting trade are in control of billions of dollars of capital, have nerves of steal, ice in their blood and never talk.

I have always suspected those shorting ECU/AUM have no knowledge whatsoever about the fundamentals and maybe even not the technicals, they simply have included this story as part of a large basket of stocks, plus those computers who trade aggressively for pennies along with some small potatoe traders playing along while those of us who are long have had a rough ride as the sector is constantly whipsawed by maybe the same big money shorting the stocks which has the effect of shaking people out constantly to the point of many no longer investing making it easier for the big money to play the game. It's been viscious and unrelenting on equities at least since the fall of 2010.

All of the key opinion leaders we follow have stated time and again this will end but to most of us it seems endless but I do agree with the Sinclair, Sprott, Norcini and Embrey's, etc. of the world that it will end and onlt those of us left standing which is far fewer than in the past will make the big money. I still intend to be one of those, all anger aside. I have learned a little in the last year from our travails and some events in my own life, live a little more in the now because no nows the future and the past can have bad stress/memories that shorten ones life if we dwell on them too much.