Yes, I do believe the semi-monthly short interest reports, especially when they correspond so nicely to expectations (high short interest during hype periods, low otherwise).
There may well be wash trades being made on CDCH, but it's not by MMs. They don't need to make illegal trades, they make a lot of money just on the volume of CDCH.
The daily FINRA numbers have little to do with real short interest. They simply reflect "instantaneous" shorts, where a MM sells stock that he doesn't hold in inventory (because MMs don't want to hold pinkie stock in inventory), then covers that sale before the end of the day. Were it truly short, the stock would appear on the Reg Sho threshold security list, at least once in a while.
Wash trades and naked shorting are both illegal practices. If a MM was going to risk their business and their careers, would they really do it on a small non-reporting pinkie like CDCH? Would they pick a stock that is so range bound? Right now, with high volume and small price movements, MMs are the only ones making any money on CDCH trades, and they do it legally.
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