wardy - thanks, I agree the PI comes rather low in the pecking order. To your point, at VOG or RPT or anywhere else, it would clearly be helpful to get an indication of the extent of shorting. If all shares on loan are used to short the same stock, then it would be easy to see which way the market was moving on a particular company. I'm not questioning your assertion re the shorting of VOG, just asking if "number of shares on loan" and "number of shares being used to short the stock" are actually the same thing.