:VODAFONE: Traders Thread, Long or Short!

I don't buy that. A cfd provider must surely be subject to broadly similar rules to a normal stockbroker, as they really provide essentially the same service but with funding. To sell stock in the physical it must be borrowed from somewhere. I was under the impression that it's a fundamental exchange rule to avoid people shorting more stock in a company than physically exists. I would imagine that a direct access cfd provider's net end-of-day position in a stock across all clients would have to be hedged in some way, or at least within the normal settlement period.

Are you saying that this isn't the case, or are you saying that the shorting time frame is only of the order of a day or two?