I think that is the most likely answer. Imagine if

I think that is the most likely answer. Imagine if you had the financial means to have 50k shares prior to the last dividend. After the dividend You now have a boatload to sell and unlike some of us here it was more of a trade vs longer term hold. You could have sold some for a while but then the price started dropping and the volume dried up. Now what? You call your broker and the broker contacts their favorite MM. The MM’s make their bread from normal trading and order flow but the icing comes from satisfying the brokerages. If the MM refuses the deal the broker takes their business elsewhere. So either the MM takes the deal at a lower than market price and then sells them later at a profit or he shorts it and then covers thus buying the shares from the brokers client. Now let’s say the company puts out a pr and the price jumps. The MM has to let the momentum slow down and they start shorting again usually with a huge sell order and the daytraders start selling knowing the price will drop. Sometimes they just list 100 shares but keep renewing knowing eventually traders will give up and sell. The other tactic is they will call their MM buddies and say “bad weather at XYZ today” which is code for I am losing my ass, help me out. They will help block the momentum. Remember the MM’s are there to make money trading there accounts. On OTC stocks they know very little about the fundamentals because many of them are scams and rarely become profitable companies or move off the pink sheets etc.