Im with you @gimo211 The smartest guys in the room know how to...

Im with you @gimo211
The smartest guys in the room know how to work the market to do what they need to do.
The objective...build up "friendly" stakes, as cheaply as possible and pounce when you know you are likely to have it in the bag.

The daily share price is a function of supply and demand for a particular stock at that particular time. simple.
What is not simple, is what is influencing supply and demand at any time. supply and demand are influenced by many things and players, and yes the influencing factors are all forward looking...i.e. looking to some future event or objectives.

Shorting has the effect of creating excess supply. excess supply means drop in price.

Check it out, 8.3 million traded today so far. out of those, 6.5 million were short sold. i.e. 6.5 million "artificial" supply.

Those shorted stocks have to come from somewhere. Someone has to "borrow" that stock. They borrow them from PE funds or large holders for a fee.
Now what actually happens when stocks are borrowed for shorting or whatever, is a little more complicated. And it depends on the lending agreement. For example, you can borrow stock but not the voting rights. You can borrow the stock and the voting rights. You can lend against the stock and margin calls get paid for with stock. and im sure theres many other permutations that can be used...(check out the 100 page SH notices) to suit the objective of the big picture players...One of these objectives could conceivably be to get themselves set as cheaply as possible and just as importantly, to set market expectations as cheap as possible....to help with the next part of their plan.

As for building up stakes under the radar...picture a PE fund or funds acting for clients situated in confidential jurisdictions. The PE fund would hold the shares in trust, and no one knows who the real owner is in the BVIs or wherever the "client" is situated. When the time comes, the shares are transacted and lo and behold a sizeable chunk materialises out of "nowhere"...The authorities are virtually powerless to do anything about it. Every now and then however, someone spills the beans and you get a glimpse of what goes on. Its a dirty game. Sometimes the folks in the street can get lucky.