What happened After six straight days of increasingly disturbing declines, Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) yo-yoed itself back up out of the depths Friday, closing the day 9.6% higher than it began. Unfortunately for the stock's enthusiasts, there was no good news to explain Intelsat stock's abrupt bounceback. Image source: Getty Images. So what So what does explain Intelsat's 10% jump? Call me a cynic, but I think what we're seeing here today is short sellers covering their short bets against Intelsat -- buying back stock that they had previously sold short. Nearly 30% of Intelsat's shares outstanding are currently sold short, which tells you this company has been a favorite to bet against. And with Intelsat having shed nearly 50% of its market cap over the past three days, a lot of those "investors" must be feeling anxious to lock in some of their profits. Indeed, ShortSqueeze.com points out that today, the percentage of Intelsat stock sold short decreased by 1%. So we know that even if short covering isn't the whole story today, short covering is at least part of the reason that Intelsat stock went up. Now what Just don't expect it to go up much more -- at least not until investors get some clarity on whether Congress will allow Intelsat to keep a bigger portion of the proceeds from the C-band spectrum it's preparing to sell to the 5G internet industry. Because as we learned pretty clearly earlier this week, letting Intelsat keep just $1 billion out of a potential $77 billion in proceeds simply isn't going to cut it. 10 stocks we like better than IntelsatWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.* David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the ten best stocks for investors to buy right now... and Intelsat wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys. See the 10 stocks *Stock Advisor returns as of December 1, 2019 Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.Source