It’s the number 1 reason; however short sellers know that dilution is taking place and use it to their full advantage to accelerate the decline. Also the more shares issued , the more shares available to legally short. The timing of the new share does correspond tightly to when Charles Schwab stopped asking me if I wanted to lend my shares out for an interest rate. They said someone was inquiring them for seeing if I wanted to lend them out. I said heck no. It was also around the time a few FTD occurred, meaning there were no more shares to short.