ATM offering (at-the-market)
A standing program that lets a company drip new shares into the open market at whatever the current price is — no roadshow, no announcement per sale. If a company has one loaded, a price spike is not just a rally; it is the company's sell window.
The mechanism behind "they will sell into this." Once the program is registered, the company can supply shares continuously into strength, capping rallies and accelerating Dilution precisely when retail excitement peaks. Forensics step: pull the issuer's recent registration statements and prospectus supplements BEFORE buying a post-spike call; a freshly used program is the template for the next one. The absence of a loaded program is real information too — it removes the fastest kill trigger from the board.