The shorts all closed or covered on the same day as the MSCI...

The shorts all closed or covered on the same day as the MSCI index rebalancing on 30th Nov (ALK was removed from the index). That day, 10.37M volume traded - almost all in the match and post-match. See below.

In the following two days, the price jumped from 61c to 70c but then drifted lower again.

Goes to show that inclusion in the index gives funds access to ALK (by mandate) and that access also enables shorts.

I'm late to the party on this one as I only re-entered ALK on 14th Dec so I hadn't seen that action take place but it's interesting nonetheless. Games were certainly played with ALK leading up to - and subsequent to - that date.