NVIDIA's Pullback Might Not Last Very Long

Since the beginning of 2015, NVIDIA Corporation NVDA has been the single hottest stock in the S&P 500, skyrocketing 465.0 percent in that two-year stretch.

After the tech giant finished 2015 as one of the five best-performing S&P 500 stocks of the year, it has continued its seemingly parabolic rise in 2016, climbing another 244.7 percent year-to-date.

Short sellers have gotten increasingly skeptical of the NVIDIA move along the way. Short interest in NVIDIA is up 54.5 percent in 2016 and 82.8 percent since the beginning of 2015. So far, the only reward that sellers betting on a pullback have gotten is heavy losses as NVIDIA continues to push to new highs on a weekly basis.

At this point, NVIDIA’s short interest has gotten so high that short covering may be helping to support the stock on any significant dips. According to shortsqueeze.com, NVIDIA currently has a relatively high short percent of float of 13.8 percent. The stock has more than 71.4 million shares held short with 4.8 days to cover.

Short seller Citron Research recently joined the crowd of NVIDIA skeptics. The firm pointed out that much of NVIDIA’s gaming growth has come at the expense of rival Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD rather than NVIDIA finding a new addressable market.

Some investors seem to be taking profits on the red-hot NVIDIA in Wednesday’s session. Shares are down 3 percent; Citron has a $90 price target for the stock.