Hi Silverbull!

Anonymous can be used by any trading house to hide the identity of the buyer or seller. In some cases it could be a cross that is posted under Anonymous or it could be both buyer and seller are unrelated and have chosen to hide their trades. Therefore this could indeed be shorts that are covering here, but it could also just be a normal trade of house A selling to house B and that is all. My broker at Union uses Anonymous for most block trades. It is my understanding that after 2 weeks those trades show in the net house positions for the originating broker, and that you cannot hide who the buyer or seller is, but sometimes pros will use this to disguise their intentions. For example if you want to accumulate a large position and not tip off that you are a buyer, you may scatter your buys in several smaller transactions on several days of trading and post under Anonymous.

Now I do happen to believe that there is a large short position on ECU, and those shorts will defend their exposure and try to cover quietly without driving the price up. If they take advantage of market weakness, stupid retail sheep that are quick to sell, or hide their intentions and display phantom blocks to keep the market intimidated, the bottom line is the buying is going to happen until those shorts have delivered the stock they owe. It would not surprise me at all if some people are losing patience and dumping paper, and a few houses are buying every share that comes to market, happy to close out and book a profit here. I bought a few more shares yesterday at 88 cents and I hope other longs are smart enough to see that ECU is a much stronger company now than it was the day before the merger was announced. Also they have been handed $15 million in cash to pay off the bills while the merger goes thorugh the approval process. Who would be selling here? Some people are pretty easily separated from their money, IMO...

cheers!

mike