"In any event, my posit was simply trying to explain why...

"In any event, my posit was simply trying to explain why institutional investors were taking on short positions despite the high price to borrow shares. Nobody pays more than 50% to borrow money if they didn't expect the return to be very positive."

The way I read the documents is that some of the larger instos, like JPM, are lending to themselves, if it is as stated, to wholly owned subsidiaries. Do you actually believe that gambit is about raising fees and interest payments back to mummy and daddy? Do you think they would foreclose on their own businesses if they are caught out by a sudden sp movement up?

My opinion is they use the lending agreement to achieve a lower market price for their own purposes. Maybe someone could show me otherwise.

Of course these subsidiaries could lend them on but then JPM don't get the benefit of decades of algorithm refinement to achieve what they want to create income.