Reality is this is a pretty small base of shorts given the float.  Suggests that the longs are probably in good shape,  the sharks are not looking at Arcan as roadkill.  On the other hand we can't get much of bounce on short covering so fundamentals will have to do. If you look at some of the nat gas stocks they  have  25 mil shorts on them on a float of about the same size.  Your playing against some big institutional money , deep pockets with those stocks...