RE:Shorts on winning sidere short volume - if we do trade with WTI, then the short volume correlates perfectly; WTI turned to downside Oct 3, and as the trend propagates itself, the short volume climbs; presumably the longer the downtrend lasts, the bigger the balls shorts get, that's what makes charts parabollic, to upside, as well as to downside, I'm guessing .. if this holds, then shorts will do as WTI does, probably nothing company-specific, unlike say AAV, where the excessive short position was probably because AAV was an easy target to manipulate..
IMO this is all strictly technical - VII trades off WTI, probably for lack of better feed for algos, WTI is downtrending, so shorts pile on until the trend reverses... from Friday action before the close, we were yet again step in step with WTI, as it tailed off aftery NYC trading closed; probably exacerbated by some stop losses taken out.. that's why the poor close on Friday.. so again, I would not read much into the short increase ... it's to be expected with the downtrending WTI