There are very likely institutions buying up a lot of these excess shares, however that is only part of the activity IMO. To attempt to further answer Traderfan's question about who keeps buying the shares, I believe a lot of the volume is artificial...I'll explain my interpretation -
1. Quant shorts 100 shares at or below bid, perhaps a few times.
2. Retail and traders exit out of fear, stop losses or TA indicators, usually exiting positions larger than 100 shares.
3. Quant absorbs some of the dumped shares by covering some shares at the lower price.
4. Keep this up, selling and buying back from themselves cheaper.
4. Doing this over and over allows them to average down. Then they back the truck up once they feel that it has bottomed out closing out as much of their short position as they can. They still average in this way cheaper than if they just started buying massive quantities.
5. Rinse - repeat.
This only works when the price is the right level that retail and traders will part with their shares relatively easily. Once news comes and buyers overwhelm the system, the system breaks down and the stock runs.
