@secondtake88, my understanding is that the shorts exist as part of an arbitrage trade. Traders have bought the foreign listed BHP which has historically traded at a discount to reflect the unusability of franking credits overseas to achieve an uplift in the SP when those shares begin trading on the ASX. To hedge out downwards SP movement, they have shorte the ASX-listed shares. So all of the short positions should be covered when the overseas shares begin trading locally.