Firms like citadel will run crowding analytics, who owns what, at what leverage and rough margin trigger points. Over simplifying but they could be shorting the longs and going long on the shorts. Everyone generally knew situational was heavily levered.

To be clear, I'm not claiming Citadel created double digit drops in SK Hynix / Samsung. I am saying that as market vol hits, vol traders might choose to make it worse. And when word hits the street someone has a liquidity position, prop traders WILL come and pressure. SA's filings were clear how concentrated they were, and this was known. In this case, Citadel (hedge fund) bought, while I imagine Citadel Securities would have been doing this (speculated upon) trading. We'll know more when the filings come out though. I'll be curious what of the portfolio they kept and what they worked / rolled in the market

Per a different WSJ article: https://www.wsj.com/finance/leopold-aschenbrenner-situationa...

> "Over the past week, traders at major hedge funds and other firms began sharing information about Situational’s exposure, with some placing short bets against its top holdings, hoping to profit as Aschenbrenner sold his positions to raise cash, according to two people close to the situation.

The short bets by the rivals weighed on Situational’s portfolio. Meanwhile, tech shares like SK Hynix were sliding. Over the three trading days ending Tuesday of this week, hedge funds reduced their positions at a scale not seen in three years, according to Goldman Sachs."

Having created (or at least amplified), the short squeeze on SA's position "Citadel executives reached out to Aschenbrenner, saying that the firm could be helpful if he needed ways to raise cash."

> "Aschenbrenner partially blamed short sellers who targeted the firm’s positions for exacerbating the fund’s losses"

Citadel spread the rumor that the Fed was going to hike rates this week. This led to Situational Awareness getting margin called on their longs.