GameStop has had very high short interest as a percentage of its float, and it was obviously the recipient of a short squeeze over the past two days that saw its stock price double:
Share volume yesterday was 144 million, which is over double the approximate 70 million shares outstanding. In other words, every day trader on the planet was flipping shares like pancakes. Today, about halfway through the market open, 53 million shares have been traded.
For the brave, the cost to borrow has also increased:
As readers here know, I do not speculate on these high volume issues – there are plenty of other intelligent (and not so intelligent) actors that are putting their two cents (or perhaps US$41) into the matter. But from a trading mechanics perspective, this one is an incredibly fascinating story considering that as far as I can tell, the underlying business is this decade’s version of Radioshack for gamers.
$136.90 seems to be the top of this short squeeze – 50 shares traded at 1:39:17am Pacific time. Man, oh man – this is more exciting to watch than Bitcoin.
$159.18 so far today. Glad I wasn’t short! Holy moly.
Yep, I was watching this real time from the open. Just utter insanity