A different way to look at short selling....

Years ago I worked at a stereo store....like 30 odd years ago. On Boxing Day there was a big promotion, lots of loss leaders. One loss leader was a dual TEAC tape deck, selling for something like $70, about 1/2 price. I worked in a small satellite store outside of the city, but they closed all the small stores and brought everyone to work the floor at the SuperStores.

We were supposed to be there at something like 8am for a sales meeting, but my Manager was late and so we didn't show up until just before the store opened at 9am. What we missed by skipping the meeting was the fact that there were exactly 100 tape decks available in the warehouse, and that 100 invoices had been filled out ahead of time....each invoice representing one tape deck.

Not knowing this, when the doors opened....the 5 or 6 guys from my store, we started writing up invoices for the tape decks, and there were other guys who'd missed the meeting as well doing the same. There were more than 100 people in line when the doors opened, probably close to 200....and the tape deck was the hot item. What a mess....they only had 100 actual tape decks but invoices for 150 had been written up, the 100 that had been "pre filled out" and another 50 or so.

I look in my account and it shows me having say 10,000 shares of RVX....What I'm seeing is basically like one of those invoices from that stereo shop all those years ago. Now I've gone to my broker with my invoice and told them to move 5,000 of the shares in my margin account and to put them into my registered RSP account.....but they won't be able to move them over unless they're able to attach a certificate # to them, if they actually exist in the warehouse so to speak.