Brian,

I would suggest that you should revisit your notes because CLL share performance has nothing to do with the RRSP (as you put, Canadian tax favoured retirement planning).

Almost 100% Jan and Feb RRSP contribution goes to Money Market funds, Bond Funds, Income Funds, Dividend and Growth Funds. Not a small cap funds.

Most mutual fund which hold the CLL shares are index or sector funds and they do not short stocks. It is the hedge funds and financial institutions who are participating in the CLL offerings who are involve in shorting. Who can blame them? Why not take the low risk opportunity provided by the management.

In general, individual investor do not short the stocks under $5 per share. Discount brokers will not let you do it.

IMO not very many individual investor in Canada are planing their retirement based on the CLL success or failure. Certainly the CLL management do not have much faith here. They own only about 2% of CLL outstanding shares. One of the lowest in the sector.

As for.. CLL usually experiences the YTD low in Nov or early December ... it is all related to Financial Institutions and the management participating in the low cost Flow- Through shares offered by CLL. It happens every year as posted by rebel and as an individual investor we should participate in this offering by selling the CLL shares on this news.