I asked ChatGPT (5.6) to analyze the BLOOMBERG TERMINAL Screenshots (see below) and provide an analysis: Yes. I found the Bloomberg Terminal screenshots now circulating heavily on X, including the new post from @palikaras, the follow-up discussion of Bloomberg's notation, and the claims that the screen proves 11.849 billion MMTLP shares or 7,182% short interest. There is something potentially important here—but X is getting ahead of what the screenshots actually prove. ---------------------------------------------------------- What the Bloomberg screen appears to show The critical Bloomberg entry is associated with MMTLP / Meta Materials' preferred security and a “Reopenings History” section. The disputed row contains a face / amount figure displayed as approximately: 11,849,153 M and dates associated with December 12, 2022. George Palikaras says that after investigating the Bloomberg convention, the M on this particular corporate preferred-security screen represents thousands, not millions. That interpretation converts: 11,849,153 × 1,000 = 11,849,153,000 units or approximately 11.849 billion. That's the first issue that needed to be resolved, because earlier discussions of these screenshots were confused about what Bloomberg's M meant. There is now also a screenshot circulating of a response attributed to Bloomberg Terminal support explaining the convention as: M = thousands MM = millions MMM = billions That substantially strengthens the interpretation that the number displayed represents 11.849 billion units, rather than 11.849 million. ---------------------------------------------------------- The arithmetic is extraordinary If we use approximately 165 million legitimate MMTLP preferred shares as the comparison: 11,849,153,000 ÷ 165,000,000 ≈ 71.81 So the Bloomberg figure is approximately 71.8× the legitimate share count. That's where people on X are getting the roughly 7,182% figure. But here's the crucial distinction: 71.8× the outstanding shares does NOT establish that MMTLP was 7,182% short. That conclusion requires us first to establish exactly what Bloomberg's 11,849,153,000 represents. And we don't have that yet. ---------------------------------------------------------- What I think is genuinely significant The most interesting part isn't simply the enormous number. It's the combination of: 11.849 billion units + “Reopenings History” + December 12, 2022. That date is extraordinarily important. December 12 was supposed to be MMTLP's final trading day before the corporate action. Instead, FINRA's U3 halt began December 9 and continued through deletion of the symbol. And Bloomberg apparently associates this massive quantity with December 12, 2022. Palikaras himself is being more careful about this than some of the subsequent X posts. He essentially presents two possibilities: A. Bloomberg's data is erroneous, or B. Bloomberg received data representing some genuine reopening/issuance-related quantity associated with the preferred security. I agree with that basic framing, although there are additional possibilities involving how Bloomberg maps corporate-action/reference data into fields designed primarily for fixed-income/preferred securities. ---------------------------------------------------------- What it does NOT prove This is where several viral X posts are making an unsupported leap. For example, one widely circulated claim says: “Market Makers sold over 11 BILLION.” The Bloomberg screenshot doesn't establish that. At least not from what I've seen. It does not presently demonstrate: 11.849 billion short sales or 11.849 billion naked shorts or 11.849 billion synthetic shares or 11.849 billion customer positions or 11.849 billion FTDs. Those are very different datasets. Bloomberg is primarily a market/reference-data system, not the authoritative stock-record ledger of every U.S. broker and clearing firm. Therefore, the screenshot by itself cannot be treated like CAT, NSCC or broker stock-record evidence. ---------------------------------------------------------- The single most important question We need Bloomberg to answer this: What precisely does the “Face”/amount field in the “Reopenings History” section represent for CUSIP 59134N20, and what was the source of the 11,849,153M value associated with December 12, 2022? That is much more important than arguing about whether M means thousand or million. The notation question appears to be moving toward an answer. The semantic meaning and source of the field are not. And that distinction was correctly recognized in one of today's X discussions: the Bloomberg-support information helps establish the unit convention, but doesn't establish what the underlying quantity represents. ---------------------------------------------------------- Here's where this gets potentially very interesting Bloomberg didn't invent MMTLP. Its reference-data system ingests information from numerous external sources. Therefore, if this wasn't a Bloomberg mapping / database error, there should potentially be provenance behind the entry. That means the next investigation shouldn't be: “Does Bloomberg say 11.8 billion?” We essentially know that the screen appears to. The investigation should be: Who supplied Bloomberg the underlying data that caused 11,849,153M to populate that field? That could be dramatically more important. Possible origins would need to be investigated—corporate-action/reference-data feeds, issuer/agent information, depository information, pricing/reference-data vendors, or another Bloomberg source. I'm deliberately not saying DTCC supplied it, because I have not found evidence establishing that. One X post is already calling the number an “Actual Clearing Ledger Record within DTCC Internal Systems.” I found no evidence supporting that characterization. That claim should not be repeated as fact. ---------------------------------------------------------- Why December 12 makes this worth pursuing Suppose Bloomberg simply had some stale or malformed MMTLP reference data. That wouldn't tell us much. But suppose Bloomberg can establish: Source: a clearing/corporate-action data provider Received: December 12, 2022 Security: MMTLP / CUSIP 59134N20 Quantity: 11,849,153,000 Meaning: aggregate quantity requiring processing Then we'd have something entirely different. That could become an evidentiary lead toward the precise question we've been pursuing: How many beneficial MMTLP/NBH entitlements actually existed at brokers? That could then be compared against: 165.5M legitimate shares → broker customer positions → DTC positions → broker stock records → contra-broker receivables → CNS/ex-CNS obligations → transfer-agent registrations → NBH bulk certificates → dividend allocations. And that would be extremely significant given the broker-level NBH registration discrepancies Next Bridge itself disclosed in July. Next Bridge's disclosure already creates a measurable reconciliation point between shares registered to brokers and shares those brokers apparently credited to customers. That's where these two stories could potentially intersect. ---------------------------------------------------------- Something else caught my attention Palikaras subsequently responded to someone asking about investigating the data by saying: “already have! all the evidence gathered including LEIs” That is interesting. An LEI — Legal Entity Identifier — could potentially help trace which legal entities were associated with reference-data records. But again, we haven't seen the underlying evidence yet. So I would classify that as: Claim by Palikaras / investigative lead — not independently verified evidence. I'd very much like to see what he means by “all the evidence gathered including LEIs.” ---------------------------------------------------------- But I would NOT dismiss this. In fact, I think this deserves serious investigation. A Bloomberg reference-data record apparently showing a quantity approximately 72× the known MMTLP share count, associated with a Reopenings History event dated December 12, 2022, is anomalous enough that Bloomberg, FINRA, SEC, DTCC and the relevant data provider should be able to explain precisely what generated it. If it's a Bloomberg error, Bloomberg should be able to identify the source and correction history. If it isn't an error, the provenance of that 11.849-billion figure becomes potentially very important evidence. And this could be useful for your SEC TCR You (Paul T) just filed the complaint asking Enforcement to reconcile customer entitlements against actual NBH shares and broker obligations. I would not send the SEC a follow-up saying “Bloomberg proves 11.8 billion naked shorts.” I would send a supplemental TCR if we can obtain the original full-resolution screenshots and Bloomberg support correspondence, phrased approximately: Please determine the source, field definition, data provenance and underlying records associated with the Bloomberg Terminal MMTLP/CUSIP 59134N20 Reopenings History entry dated December 12, 2022 displaying 11,849,153M. I am not asserting that this figure represents short positions; I request that Enforcement determine what the quantity represents and whether it corresponds to any broker-dealer, clearing, corporate-action or beneficial-owner obligations. That is a very strong investigative request. And because the Bloomberg discussion exploded today, this qualifies as a meaningful new MMTLP development for our monitoring purposes, although not yet the reconciliation breakthrough itself. ---------------------------------------------------------- SCREENSHOTS BELOW Credit: @Stef_carpedm / @ElfCarbon The strongest screenshot is #4. It drills into the Bloomberg corporate-action record and explicitly displays: Company: Meta Materials Inc CUSIP: 59134N20 Announced Date: 12/12/2022 Effective Date: 12/12/2022 Reopening/Increase Amount: 11,849,153.000 Shares Competitive Amount: 11,849,153.000 Shares Action ID: 236187353 This resolves one major issue The M = thousands debate is not necessary to interpret screenshot #4. Bloomberg's drill-down explicitly labels the quantity: 11,849,153.000 Shares That means 11.849 million shares, not 11.849 billion. This is extremely important. The earlier screen (#2/#3) says: Amount (M): 11,849,153.0 Looking at that screen alone, people interpreted M as Bloomberg's thousands convention and multiplied 11,849,153 by 1,000. But the Bloomberg drill-down associated with the event explicitly says: Reopening/Increase Amount 11,849,153.000 Shares So based on the screenshots provided, I would NOT support the claim that Bloomberg is reporting 11.849 billion MMTLP shares. Rather, the evidence presently supports a Bloomberg record for an 11.849-million-share corporate-action amount. And that is still interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------- The dates are particularly strange The Bloomberg record gives: Announced: December 12, 2022 Effective: December 12, 2022 That's the date that had been scheduled as MMTLP's final trading day before FINRA's U3 halt eliminated December 9 and December 12 trading. Bloomberg categorizes the event as: Debt Offering/Increase → Reopening/Increase Amount and the earlier screen calls it: Reopenings History → Reopening That deserves an explanation. But we should not assume “reopening” means reopening MMTLP for trading. Bloomberg appears to be using a preferred/fixed-income corporate-action data structure. A “reopening” in that context normally refers to increasing/reopening an existing security issuance, not reopening market trading. Screenshot #1 is also useful The February 14, 2023 Bloomberg screenshot provides a historical control. It shows the same preferred-security page and: Syndicate 06/30/2021 Sole Manager: Not Underwritten but no Reopenings History entry is visible. The later screenshot contains the December 12, 2022 reopening entry. That suggests the record was either: • subsequently added to Bloomberg's database; • not displayed in the earlier version/page state; • backfilled/corrected later; or • generated from a Bloomberg data source that changed. We cannot tell which from these screenshots alone. There is an additional issue I want to investigate: CUSIP 59134N20 in the drill-down versus the complete CUSIP associated with the preferred security. Bloomberg sometimes displays shortened identifiers in particular interfaces, but we should establish precisely what Bloomberg's record represents. ---------------------------------------------------------- The most valuable thing in these screenshots may actually be the Action ID Bloomberg Action ID 236187353 That gives Bloomberg a specific database object to investigate. Instead of asking Bloomberg: “What does this 11 million/billion number mean?” someone with Bloomberg access should ask Bloomberg Data/Corporate Actions: For Bloomberg Action ID 236187353, CUSIP 59134N20, announced and effective December 12, 2022, what is the underlying source of the Reopening/Increase Amount of 11,849,153.000 shares? What corporate action does this record represent, who supplied the source data, when was the record first entered into Bloomberg, and was the record subsequently amended or backfilled? That could get us somewhere. It would tell us whether the 11.849M originated from Bloomberg, the issuer, a transfer agent, DTCC-related corporate-action data, an exchange/vendor feed, or something else. And I would immediately correct the 11.849-billion interpretation before incorporating these screenshots into your SEC TCR correspondence. The drill-down you've just provided is substantially better evidence than the derivative X graphics because it explicitly spells out “11,849,153.000 Shares.”