Okay Gordy, I'll enlighten you. The spread of stocks is determined by supply and demand. The spread tightens at the top and bottom of a move, when the number of buyers and sellers is pretty much even. The spread widens when there is an imbalance between buyers and sellers, as evidenced by sharp upmoves and downmoves. Capisce?
Imo it was a great short, the MM's found out about it, and decided to make it hard for you to cover. Stay the course, the MM's will soon forget you are there and you can cover at your leisure. "Hey Pal, my Dad's got an even better cleft."
GG, SYXI is a stock that avg 150,000 shares a day. With some days much lighter than that. With such a low volume stock you should not be surprised tha the spread can get so wide. goldenarm is correct in the basic premise of spreads. If you don't want to be surprised like this stay away from these lighter volume stocks or else trade with a wide time horizon (days/weeks rather than intraday trading). Not much else to say!