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GameStop Corp. shares reversed course Monday, retreating from their record weekly gain, after one noted analyst said more than half of the short positions on the stock had been eliminated.
GameStop GME, -30.77% shares fell as much as 35% in Monday trading, and closed down 31% at $225.00. Volume was at more than 34 million shares by the close. Over the past 10 trading days, daily volume has averaged 92.2 million shares, and averaged 11 million shares daily over the past 52 weeks.
Last week, GameStop’s stock soared 400% in an extremely volatile trading week where retail investor loyalists of the stock assembled via the Reddit WallStreetBets thread to clash with institutional short sellers on Wall Street.
Ihor Dusaniwsky — the head of predictive analytics at financial technology and analytics firm S3 Partners, which specializes in analyzing data on short selling — said on Monday that the “short squeeze has begun” on GameStop, even though some were speculating that a short squeeze was boosting the stock in mid-January.
The number of GameStop shares shorted fell by 35.2 million over last week, leaving 27.1 million short positions remaining, or a drop of 56%, according to S3 data. Shorts have lost about $13 billion in 2021 alone on GameStop even after gaining more than $2 billion on Monday’s downturn, Dusaniwsky said.
“Both fundamental and momentum short sellers have found opportunities and price exit points to trim their positions in the face of these losses as the GME short squeeze is in full force,” Dusaniwsky said in emailed comments.
Meanwhile, the stock most likely to be said in the same breath as GameStop, AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. AMC, +0.30%, was up as much as 30% Monday, but closed up 0.3% at $13.30 as one analyst downgraded the stock to a sell rating and cut their price target to $1.
A new addition to the Reddit treatment was the iShares Silver Trust SLV, +7.08%, which had gained as much as 12% Monday, finished up 8% at $26.98.
On the other hand, shares of other-heavily shorted stocks like GameStop were logging sizable losses Monday. Stocks like Naked Brand Group Ltd. NAKD, -13.94%, Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY, -14.35%, National Beverage Corp. FIZZ, -13.17%, SunPower Corp. SPWR, -9.85%, and Macerich Co. MAC, -10.76% closed down 10% or more Monday.
Heavily-shorted stocks bucking Monday’s downward trend included BlackBerry Ltd. BB, +3.76% with a 3.8% gain, Nokia NOK, +7.24% with a 7.2% gain, Fossil Group Inc. FOSL, +4.90% closing up 5%, and 3D Systems Inc. DDD, +9.48% with a 9.5% gain.
