Regencell Bioscience shares continued to rise 124%, shares have gained 180 times this year.

The money-losing traditional Chinese medicine company blamed short sellers for last month’s massive stock gain, which briefly boosted its chief executive officer’s paper wealth to one of the world’s 100 largest fortunes.

Hong Kong-based Regencell Bioscience Holdings Ltd., which develops herbal treatments for ADHD and autism, saw its shares soar more than 82,000% from a February low. The company’s stock has since fallen about 80%.

In interim financial results released Monday, Regencell — which has reported six consecutive years of net losses — pointed to short sellers as a possible cause of its stock’s extreme volatility.

“We believe that a ‘short squeeze’ due to a sudden increase in demand for our ordinary shares that largely exceeds supply has led to, and may continue to lead to, extreme price volatility,” according to the filing. It added that nothing has changed about its operating performance or financial position.

At the shares’ June 17 peak, founder Yat-Gai Au’s 86% stake was worth $33.3 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, putting him ahead of such rich-list stawarts as Phil Knight and Masayoshi Son. His net worth has since dropped to $6.8 billion.

Some experts, including S3 Partners’ Ihor Dusaniwsky, questioned Au’s explanation for the price swings, saying “it doesn’t hold water.”

Regencell’s current short interest is only about 1 million shares, or just 3% of the company’s already low float, data from S3 Partners shows. Given those numbers, it’s unlikely that short sellers wield enough muscle to move the share price significantly, Dusaniwsky said.

“Looking at the size of the short selling compared to the trading volume, it can’t be the cause,” Dusaniwsky, the firm’s managing director of predictive analytics, said in an interview.