I've been analyzing this myself. Generally, I'm not convinced.
WSB had millions of people join the subreddit in the past week (~5m). If each held an average of 5 shares, that'd be 25m shares. There are only 69.75M shares outstanding.
At that point WSB started piling on and millions of shares went into call options and / or were purchased - by retail investors OR people who frequented WSB.
Remember, hedge fund managers and what not also visit and contribute to WSB. There is absolutely no reason to assume a given institution isn't also in on this (and effectively collaborating).
Anyway, how much of it is institutional? I'm unsure, honestly doesn't matter.
By January 15 the float started being purchased and prices were rising. The short sellers started losing money and the hedge funds holding short positions likely expected things to reverse course, as a quick pump-and-dump.
That didn't happen. All the remaining float was then bought up by millions of retail investors; raising prices. Sure some of the hedge funds also sold during this point, but retail inexplicably kept buying (keeping prices high).
They also aren't going to sell for anything less than $1000+ and IT IS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. Some may never sell:
What does this mean? The short sellers double down hoping to wait it out.
Does this work? Maybe. After robinhood forced the sell off, we're going to see peoples transferred funds hit monday and tuesday. This is a middle finger to the hedge funds to these people. We're going to see the price go up... idk ho much, I'm guessing thousands.
People will surely sell, but if retail continues to hold (or buy at $200), the short sellers are still suck spending billions on interest and will eventually pay out. Sellers have little reason to sell for anything less than $10,000 or something crazy.
Now, did the short sellers get out? I'm not sure, but given how much everyone is freaking out - I am not so sure. I know "hedge fund bros". My bet is they are still holding or doubling down and it's about to get real very fast.
WSB had millions of people join the subreddit in the past week (~5m). If each held an average of 5 shares, that'd be 25m shares. There are only 69.75M shares outstanding.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME/key-statistics?p=GME
There are 46.89M shares in float (i.e. are readily available).
On January 15 2021 61.78M shares were shorted. This is matched here:
https://shortsqueeze.com/?symbol=GME&submit=Short+Quote%E2%8...
At that point WSB started piling on and millions of shares went into call options and / or were purchased - by retail investors OR people who frequented WSB.
Remember, hedge fund managers and what not also visit and contribute to WSB. There is absolutely no reason to assume a given institution isn't also in on this (and effectively collaborating).
Anyway, how much of it is institutional? I'm unsure, honestly doesn't matter.
By January 15 the float started being purchased and prices were rising. The short sellers started losing money and the hedge funds holding short positions likely expected things to reverse course, as a quick pump-and-dump.
That didn't happen. All the remaining float was then bought up by millions of retail investors; raising prices. Sure some of the hedge funds also sold during this point, but retail inexplicably kept buying (keeping prices high).
They also aren't going to sell for anything less than $1000+ and IT IS NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. Some may never sell:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/l6omry/an_o...
What does this mean? The short sellers double down hoping to wait it out.
Does this work? Maybe. After robinhood forced the sell off, we're going to see peoples transferred funds hit monday and tuesday. This is a middle finger to the hedge funds to these people. We're going to see the price go up... idk ho much, I'm guessing thousands.
People will surely sell, but if retail continues to hold (or buy at $200), the short sellers are still suck spending billions on interest and will eventually pay out. Sellers have little reason to sell for anything less than $10,000 or something crazy.
Now, did the short sellers get out? I'm not sure, but given how much everyone is freaking out - I am not so sure. I know "hedge fund bros". My bet is they are still holding or doubling down and it's about to get real very fast.