General Discussion Topics, page-133086

"Again, with that possibility hanging over the SYA stock, who would want to risk going long to pump it up a bit, when they were already sitting on great returns?"

The entity returning the shares to close their short positions doesn't have to be the same as the entity receiving them and being left long does it though? Which given the proximity of this event to the imminent rebalances I would assume is index-funds which had taken up mandated holdings in SYA on inclusion into the MSCI and ASX 200 indexes.

Now they would be likely recalling these shares to sell as they are no longer mandated to hold them once SYA is deleted from these indexes. These index-funds are going to sell them regardless of the price so there is not exactly the "risk" that you're suggesting IMO.