pic, sure naked shorting was around before, but I would guess that in those days the money was made with the stock appreciating. Now it seems that the money is to be made in naked shorting.
Please understand that I am in ECU because of the huge fundamental value here, and hope that eventually the buyers will overwhelm the naked shorters to the point that they also go back to plan A, which is the old fashioned way, sell the stock to people and profit by price appreciation. My hope would be that somehow the regulators in Canada, or the company could do something to hang these people out and have to cover, which would cause a short squeeze of impressive proportions.
In the meantime, I will wait and hang on to this stock as I believe as you and the other posters here that things will turn and ECU will have it's day. But there is so much money to be made naked shorting. Think about it, they aren't just making commissions or mark downs, they're taking all of the proceeds, never intending to cover. So if 500,000 shares are naked shorted at $.60 they just made $300K. I would like to increase awareness of this so that whoever goes to the shareholder meeting can bring this up to the BOD and see what they are doing to correct this.
As for me, for what it's worth I have taken delivery of most of my shares. I would hope that will provide some proof of ownership if things get dicey with share conversion in a buyout.
C