Ayala Pharmaceuticals Inc (ADXS)

[tinfoillurker]

1. Who crashed the stock and brought it back up in minutes? I am confident you would agree that it's not retail.

There's not necessarily any reason it was intentionally "brought back up". In such a small timeframe, a single large sale from 22.14 to 14.08 would have emptied the order book on the way down. You saw this often earlier in bitcoin's history, for example, where enormous candles suddenly emptied a huge amount of the order book and a skirmish takes place while the book resettles. The price often retraces far above where the initial candle descended.

That said, I don't doubt there was some northward nudging that took place to help that retracement settle as high as possible. See also controlled establishment of a huge short position without even needing to budge the price because the market does it for you thinking "good news". See also how buying into short sales hurts you when they're 100% in control and buy warrants instead if you're going to buy.

2. a clinical hold was placed on ADXS' trials due to a patient's death. But how did the flash crashers know this info before the company or FDA released the information?

Hmm I wonder which hedge funds are A) insiders, B) used purchases to pump the price over several months while a massive short position was built up over nothing except the Pearson hit piece, and C) have a vested interest in maximizing returns and minimizing losses...