How could a company figure out that the best way to scare shorts away, is to drive the price immediately to 0.0001 , where shorts love to cover.
Unless, the company is covering its own shorts.
Here's a different scenario, though I hope it isn't true. Say....the company puts out this "buyback" PR, which you must admit seems to have been thrown together so hastily that it doesn't even address the effect of the buyback on the CDs and the preferred.
Stock price immediately falls to 0.0001 x 0.0002. The company (or its agents) buys a whole lotta cheap stock. Then they announce that for a variety of reasons--including protests by shareholders--they're calling the buyback off. The stock zooms, and the newly-purchased stock is sold at a nice profit.
Ooops, but that would be very serious stock manipulation, wouldn't it?