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High Short Interest Stocks

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Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#71

Post by nr2x »

anigbrowl wrote: post #38
tom_mellior wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll buy the "operating in pursuit of the class interest" angle rather than the "make money off each other" angle when the bubble properly bursts and we see the media stories about the early moving millionaires bailing out the late movers who lost their life savings. I'm not betting on that. The people who architected this bubble had a fair share of self-interest.

I think it's a mix. Some people certainly wanted a profit and planned to get out early, others bought in with the appreciation that they might suffer a loss when the price falls back down, but like the idea of pushing a hedge fund into bankruptcy. I have had conversations with both sorts of buyers in recent days. BTW I am not holding any positions in these stocks myself.

I consider the money I've spent on GME as equivalent to paying for comedy club admission. This is amusing.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#72

Post by TheGrassyKnoll »

xwdv wrote: post #10

I’m surprised this sort of attack has never be carried out before. Is it just because no one ever thought there’d be a crazy army of retail investors that could be so coordinated and so irrational and large enough to matter?

Free government money, a free trading platform & a lot of people stuck at home.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#73

Post by alasdair_ »

xxpor wrote: post #48
jeffbee wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been many attempted short squeezes, notoriously the attempt by the founder of Piggly Wiggly to squeeze shorts 100 years ago. He ended up broke, of course, because cornering the market on shares that you pumped to a ridiculous price is never a great idea. More recently there was a cartel that tried to squeeze Volkswagen shorts in 2008.

The only reason the Piggly Wiggly guy ended up broke is because they changed the settlement rules out from under him. It was extremely legally questionable.

Same thing when those two brothers tried to corner the silver market.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#74

Post by epistasis »

alasdair_ wrote: post #70
epistasis wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And further, these were large sophisticated investors that should have known when to get out and take their losses (as Melvin eventually did). For us small time folks we can do a limit short so that our risk exposure is limited.

Is there proof Melvin actually got out? All I saw was a “source” on CNBC. EDIT: This is the story: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/01/27/melvin-capital-sells-o... It's full of plausible deniability phrases like "from what I understand" and it's very much a game of telephone. They could easily say "when I meant we were out of the stock, I meant that we had covered some of our positions" or similar. I can't find a non-…

I thought the source was Melvin. Lying about it would be extremely risky, I think? As in jail time risky? Could be wrong.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#75

Post by tinyhouse »

plaidfuji wrote: post #24
torben-friis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually saw that and wondered what are the chances that I wake up tomorrow with that stock high as hell as a redirection from gme buyers...

The current candidates being floated by WSB are Nokia, AMC, Ericsson and Blackberry. Even though Virgin Galactic is second on this list, my impression of the WSB crowd is that they look for companies that are both high-short-interest and some nostalgic notion of being “worthy of saving”... Virgin would probably not fit their MO given the high-profile billionaire owner...

Nokia and Ericsson are not highly shorted. Nokia short ratio is less than 1%. I have no idea why WSB picked them. Also, both companies' market cap is greater than 20B so it's not easy to manipulate the stock price to the GME levels.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#77

Post by alasdair_ »

epistasis wrote: post #74
alasdair_ wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there proof Melvin actually got out? All I saw was a “source” on CNBC. EDIT: This is the story: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2021/01/27/melvin-capital-sells-o... It's full of plausible deniability phrases like "from what I understand" and it's very much a game of telephone. They could easily say "when I meant we were out of the stock, I meant that we had covered some of our positions" or similar. I can't find a non-…

I thought the source was Melvin. Lying about it would be extremely risky, I think? As in jail time risky? Could be wrong.

Every article I can find just says “CNBC reported” or similar. And CNBC just mentions a “source”.

I’ve yet to find an actual statement from Melvin.

Re: High Short Interest Stocks

#79

Post by sailingparrot »

echelon wrote: post #2

If a position is shorted under 100%, does that give the shorts enough wiggle room to close their position?

Not always, it depends on the usual volume and the willingness of shareholders to sell. There was a smaller short squeeze in TSLA circa 2013 going to the ~90$ (pre-split) price range and IIRC short interest was "only" in the 30-50%.
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