I’m not a finance expert, but the hedge funds could have bought GME stocks sometimes between opening their short position and closing it.
The short could have been naked when it was made, but there is nothing stopping the hedge fund from buying the underlying security ahead of the short position closing.
Is the total 149% short closing on this Friday? I was under the impression that the 100+% short position was for all shorts for all closing dates on GME? If the 149% short is spread over multiple weeks/months it seems misleading to quote the over 100% short position as a sure marker of an unlimited squeeze.
For reference, during the unlimited squeeze of Volkswagen’s stocks in 2008 it was estimated that less than 1% of Volkswagen shares were liquid — due to Porsche silently buying the majority of liquid stocks — to cover the short positions which led to the “unlimited squeeze”. I have a hard time believing that The number of liquid GME shares out there are nearly as low as 1%. The only way I could see the liquidity going that low is if institutional investors with tens or hundreds of billions dollars in market cap decide to buy up all liquid shares, effectively lowering the liquidity of GME to similar levels as Volkswagen during the 2008 unlimited short squeeze.
The short could have been naked when it was made, but there is nothing stopping the hedge fund from buying the underlying security ahead of the short position closing.