The way I'm looking at the short interest is that their bet is primarily contingent upon poor profits from the OTA in place atm - If you opened a short position for that particular reason the logical thing to do is see it through to the end to cash in on that bet. My guess is they are waiting for the earnings on the premise that it will be a 'shock' to the market and then double down on the poor profits narrative to drive the SP down.
That is likely their ideal situation for closing out their positions. The usual suspects on twitter shorting SYA are running with the narrative that we will run at a loss due to most of our early production capacity being allocated to the OT with a $900 ceiling. The determining factor for if it plays out to this tune IMO will be how much additional product can be produced and allocated to another OT partner at current market prices to offset the shortcomings from the initial OT.
They're certainly playing a risky game if SYA manages to run through the ramp up period to nameplate capacity without hiccups and with decent initial profits. That's just taking into account the factors around initial production - How much will progress on Moblan or other assets work against their short positions, the longer they draw this out the more risky it gets.
As you say, either the shorts are extremely knowledgeable or extremely stupid. Production begins next week, I would really like to start getting answers for some of these unknown factors.
SYA Price at posting:
24.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)