There has been a lot of talk on here about short positions.  I have never shorted a stock and really don't know a lot about the strategy, but from a logical perspective I don't think that much of the short positions are "naked shorts".  I suspect that they are just the vehicle used by investors to minimize their risk.  They might in fact represent long positions that are hedged using this technique and that would explain why there has been such an increase in the number of the shares of stock that are shorted.  Perhaps someone might shed some more light on this issue.

Martin