I'm a flip flopper on this.
The short interest numbers as published so far are not adequate to absorb the placement in advance - a net +600k shares from the prior period and a measly net +400 versus the month ago short interest. Obviously numbers for the Jun15 settlement might indicate a different story - or not. One could short into the volume around the placement with perhaps some covering on the 12. Covering after the 12th would not settle before the short report, it would in theory become apparent in the next report.
Obviously, were one to have shorted at/near/above the placement price then slower unwinding from the box may be occurring, but again the coming short report would reflect that.
When one looks at the price volume, it seems NW has a point. The price quite plainly did not collapse in the 'somebody knows something' fashion prior to the placement/announcement. That has happened before quit obviously, perhaps to the detriment of the final placement price.
The volume leading into the placement could support shorting against the box, but that runs into the supply/demand problem the ATM or anything else faces .... its hard to imagine the SP holding with 5m new shares(short) stepping all over the bid. So I'm going to go with NW. There was now doubt some hedged/shorted component to the placement, but nothing paints the ridiculously obvious picture of price/volume/placement disposition that has been observed before.
On the parasite thing, I'm pretty firmly in the camp that the ATM simply could not have raised that amount of money at that price, I believe such efforts could have easily battered the price well below where it currently is - that the lack of ATM use is the only thing that allowed the price increase of the last 75 days. This is the role that private placements fill.
The above content is my opinion.
