With the shares now down over 90% since first mentioning this name on August 14th, I am removing the paywalls on both the notes I published, including the follow-up a week later on August 21st.
But what a crazy ride, right?
After closing at $13.65 on August 14th, the company’s stock price proceeded to increase by anywhere between 10%-60% each day for the next 5 trading days, closing at $34.30 on August 21st, with daily volume steadily increasing from 300K or so shares to 4M shares. This, on a stock that supposedly only had 2M or so shares in the entire float.
On August 22nd, though, something changed, and while the 4M shares of volume was still there, the stock actually declined by $3. This turned out to be a precursor for the carnage that happened the next day.
Shares opened on August 23rd at $4.91, down over 80%, on no specific news, with a daily trading range of $1.20 to $13.09 before closing at $2.35 on over 35M shares of volume. One would hope that all of those folks cheerleading on Reddit and Twitter and saying buy buy buy were all holders overnight and woke up to quite the surprise, or perhaps were trying to bottomfish after it opened, but I tend to doubt it.
While the squeeze higher and the compressed trading schedule here may be outliers for the entire short selling experience, it is a sharp reminder of what can happen to some names in these markets.
If you managed to find a few shares and hang on for the ride, my hat is off for you.
Wonder what the original E.F. Hutton would think?