As far as the structure of the trade today, it looks more like a solid bit of acquisition... probably just a couple of holders who traded out of some shares a while back, who used the money on other trades in the interim, who are now buying back in to the position they want prior to the start of trial.
I don't think you can really read much more into that other than the obvious. Those sorts of choices have short term market impact, but are otherwise unlikely to have any real influence on the outcome. They might indicate nothing much other than traders aware of the opportunity here also having some recent successes in some other trades. Basically, market noise.
I haven't looked that closely at the short position here in a while... but, I don't think it very likely there are more than a couple of million shares short. The trading pattern doesn't seem one that has been dominated by shorts, recently, and probably not since mid November. After that, it all looks like trading range stuff. Don't think there is much if any hot money still short here, now. The trade here isn't fast enough or interesting enough for that... and the risk grows over time with potentially exponential impact. The fast money shorts came in and capped the rally, made a quick bit of $, and then moved on. The way they did that, and when they did, it was quite obviously stupid, actually... IMO a pretty clear instance of a poisoned trade that did far more to limit itself than it did anything else. And, still, I don't think they care...
The issues that will matter from here... are more likely to be those related to the clock, and those related to the changes in the situation as we see how things go at trial... once we do get to the point where trial gets going...
I've not made a guess for how long this ought to take, from here. I'd guess some of the resident lawyers could proffer a "base line" guess based only on the mechanics, given what is apparent in the witness lists, etc. Maybe a couple of weeks once things get started. Then, you might expect an endless series of new reasons being offered for imposing additional delays based on anything and everything that the defense can think of... which is what you'd normally expect to see from a defendant who is trying to win (or, not lose) by any means possible, including gaming the system as much as is possible.
I'll be surprised if we see anything here being resolved prior to late March or early April... and, odds are, it might even drag along into early to mid summer.
Still, I don't care how long it takes... I care that the end result is what it should be. So, after the state trial concludes... expect there will be appeals... etc.
I don't think we're close to being "done" rather than close to the beginning...
.JPG)
.JPG)
