The insto's planned all along to smash lithium companies all year (2018), although to get GXY to drop as much as the rest, they needed to increase their short positions from about 8% (Jan 2018) to about 17% over the year.... Because, well, their bs strories about prices collapsing and the Chileans ramping up their production, DSO fantasies, and oversupply garbage, was just not enough to drop the price of our GXY to the levels that they wanted, without their interference through short selling.
Where would we be had the shorts remained at 8%? That would have been about 40 MILLION LESS shares sold over the year, every one of which put "fake" downward pressure on the price. Also, plenty of stops would have been hit along the way, "falsely" representing departure of long positions. Forced; not by choice.
Says something for the strength of this company imo. Plenty of others halved in value without a short invasion.
As I keep saying, the reversal is going to be swift and brutal, especially as it looks increasingly likely to be aligned with an awakening of the general public about what the future of transportation actually looks like - as the ads become mainstream and the tipping point gets closer and closer.