"Why it wasn't required of them would be more speculative yet, and I'm not trying to fill that blank."

Allow me to fill in that blank. If NOT had been required to respond to why the market activity was unusual, so as to say there was no apparent reason for it, then they might have to .....avoid the truth. When the news came out that might be difficult to explain particularly when it appears that some will have benefitted from the recent activity. We are actually down from a few days ago so the sp doesn't stick out, but the combination of volume and the modest 9% increase signify some interest. Price of stock was dropped significantly on large volume and bought back on even larger volume with the sp remaining rather low considering. A bit of sp supression seemed to be at work during a very significant burst in volume given the recent history.