Mattress Bathtub & Past, AMC rally with GameStop as small buyers squeeze hedge funds into extra shares

Bed Bath & Beyond and AMC Entertainment are the newest speculative targets for retail investors, creating a nightmare scenario for hedge funds betting against these once battered stocks.

Stocks of Bed Bath & Beyond rose up to 40% and shares of AMC Entertainment up to 70% on Monday as individual investors pile into the names as hedge funds quickly recoup their losses from shorting the stocks. Bed Bath & Beyond’s shares were last up 7% and AMC last up 25%.

The pair are joining GameStop, which rose more than 100% in its short squeeze rallies on Monday. Troubled video retailer GameStop was up 325% in January alone, rising to over $ 150 per share at one point on Monday. The equity rally does not seem to be slowing, despite Wall Street companies’ valuation concerns. GameStop shares soon negative on Monday at noon.

There are brief shortages in the marketplace, mostly staged by motivated retail stock buyers who are explicitly trying to smash Wall Street shorts. The rookie investors use online chat rooms and websites to gather information and assistance, and to marginalize these competitive stocks.

“What we are seeing is an interesting conflict between retail investors and the big institutions,” said Delano Saporu, founder of New Street Advisors Group. “The cheerleading and the strong emotions on both sides create an environment for emotional investing.”

According to FactSet, GameStop has borrowed and sold around 138% of its float stocks. This is the most abbreviated name on the US exchange, according to FactSet.

In another sign of rampant speculation, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF’s option volume was 13,000 at 10 a.m. on Monday, more than usual, according to Susquehanna’s Chris Murphy. The average daily volume of 20 days is around 20,000. GameStop is a component, roughly 3% of the SPDR ETF.

GameStop is the most actively traded stock on Fidelity on Monday, with AMC also taking a top spot. Buy orders for GameStop are nearly three to one higher than sell orders.

Bed bath & AMC

Bed Bath & Beyond follows GameStop but also has great short interest as 64% of its float stocks are tied up in short bets. When a large chunk of a stock’s stocks are sold short, it is vulnerable to what is known as a short squeeze, in which hedge funds that bet against the stock have to fall back to buy the stock or risk further losses.

The retailer is up 150% this year alone.

“Well, there goes BBBY – unbelievable … shorts are on the run … Wallstreetbets on the fall?” CNBC’s Jim Cramer tweeted Monday, referring to a popular Reddit page where young investors plan and plan .

“It’s the ‘Wallstreetbets’ people.” And they have teamed up, presumably for the sake of freedom of speech, to focus on a few stocks, “added Cramer at Squawk on the Street. “I’ve never seen guns like this before. They can break shorts.”

AMC Entertainment has tied up around 24% of its free float in short-term interest, and the stock is rising on Monday after the company announced it had secured enough funding to stay open and operational through Monday 2021.

The world’s largest cinema chain has raised $ 917 million in new equity and debt, the company announced in an SEC filing. Approximately $ 500 million of this fundraising came from the issuance of new common stock. However, it is unusual for a stock to jump on the news about a stock issue. Ordinarily, the new stock offering would weigh on the stock. In these speculative times, the stock increase has the opposite effect.

“We will continue to see a battle of hope and optimism among retail investors as the old guard hold on to fundamentals and metrics,” added Saporu.

Reddit favorites

Another popular topic on Reddit Monday is BlackBerry, which gained more than 30% in morning trading. One of the top posts on the reddit forum “wallstreetbets” contained a meme with a BlackBerry at the GameStop gas station.

BlackBerry gained 25% last week after reports it settled a patent fee dispute with Facebook.

BlackBerry “is not aware of any material, undisclosed corporate developments and there are no material changes in its business or affairs that have not been publicly disclosed that would explain the recent increase in the market price or trading volume of its common stock,” BlackBerry said in a statement on Monday.

Other heavily shortened names appear on Monday. National Beverage increased 11%, Macerich increased 21%, and Tanger Factory Outlet and Tootsie Roll Industries increased 8% and 11%, respectively.

Children’s Place’s shares were up 9% and iRobot was up 18% on Monday.

Another name that has signs of a possible brief press is SunPower, a residential solar installer. The company’s shares, with a market cap of nearly $ 9 billion, rose more than 14% on Monday before turning negative. Part of this could be short sellers struggling to cover their position as the short selling interest in the stock is relatively high at 53% of the free float, according to FactSet.

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– with reports from Yun Li, Pippa Stevens and Patti Domm from CNBC.