Shorting Activity

https://www.shortman.com.au/stock?q=rms

Has anyone else noticed that since the SPX deal was announced almost 13million RMS shares have been shorted. But now over the past trading week or so almost approximately 10 million shares have been bought back. Normally, such a sharp unwind of a short position would normally see a bigger rebound in stock price. Now as we all know there has been a A$400 increase in the price of Gold since the T/O was announced when RMS shares were trading at $1.33.
I know there has been a dilution event to RMS but surely this is more than offset by the "high way robbery event" which Ladytrader has remarked upon.
Why would anyone short into a Gold market which looks so good and why start aggressively doing so on what on the face of things looks like a great deal for RMS ?
Also, there is a serious amount of capping of the stock price with large orders placed up and down the sell side.

I have seen this sort of activity when takeovers are in the wind, when a bid is made at a premium to the previous 90 day, or so ,daily average stock price.

It may also be a tactic employed by a party wishing to extract more out of the initial offer by reducing the stock price of RMS, or alternatively, it might have been used to tree shake some panicked SPX sellers into the hands of an RMS friendly institution.

All of course all my own supposition, but since the advent of Brokers providing Direct market access to professional traders who can have multiple accounts with different brokers then spotting either side trading as a manipulative practice can be very difficult.

AIMHO