58%. $2.13 trillion. 18 years. Three numbers that explain why market transparency deserves a much bigger conversation. 58%: The proportion of American adults who reported owning stocks in Gallup’s April 2026 survey, down from 62% in 2025. That includes investments through mutual funds and retirement accounts. Market integrity matters to ordinary families building their future. [source 1 below] $2.13 trillion: The reported value of short positions across US and Canadian equities in July 2026, according to reporting citing S3 Partners. Short selling serves legitimate purposes. At this scale, transparent and reliable records should be a basic expectation. How much of this figure is a measure of illegal activity? [2] 18 years: The span from Congress’s 2010 Dodd-Frank mandate for greater short-sale transparency to the first Form SHO filings now scheduled for February 2028. These filings go to the SEC; public disclosure will be aggregated, rather than identifying individual managers’ positions. [3] Against that backdrop, Greg McCabe’s appearance with @cvpayne Charles Payne brings an important shareholder issue to a wider audience. Nearly four years after the MMTLP trading halt, shareholders continue to seek clarity about their holdings and how the records reconcile. I’m proud that Next Bridge Hydrocarbons has engaged BlueLedger as its first issuer client to independently examine fragmented securities records and investigate potential discrepancies. Our responsibility is to distinguish documented facts from analytical findings and unanswered questions. A discrepancy requires investigation; it does not, by itself, establish wrongdoing, in this case the data is screaming off the pages. Next Bridge is asking for answers that shareholders can verify. The broader principle is straightforward: an issuer should be able to trace its securities, and an investor should be able to understand the ownership recorded in their account. Transparency becomes meaningful when the records can be reconciled. Follow the security. See what doesn’t match. Sources: [1] Gallup — stock ownership trends [2] July 20, 2026 reporting citing S3 Partners [3] SEC — 2023 rule and congressional mandate | SEC — reporting extension to 2028 #MMTLP #NextBridge #MarketIntegrity #ShareholderRights #BlueLedgerAI