Well, I don't really need to debate this with you, but maybe you should just make it a case study to understand how this works. GME was down much lower than $16... Cohen became interested and started making statements... GME filed that shelf reg... Cohen got even more vocal and bought much stock... Wall St wanted to short it after it started up like that... retail jumped in and fired away to the moon.
Zion can do this, just for different reasons (struck oil), and retail can have a big hand in it, the company can fund everything it needs, everyone wins but the "shorts."