GameStop Corp. GME chairman and Chewy Inc. CHWY co-founder Ryan Cohen said that the government should crack down on hedge fund short sellers to make good use of taxpayer money.
What Happened: Cohen made the comment on Twitter, after having earlier called short sellers “the dumb stormtroopers of the investing galaxy.”
Good use of taxpayer $ is the government cracking down on hedge fund short sellers
— Ryan Cohen (@ryancohen) March 16, 2022
See Also: Forget AMC And GameStop: Could Shorts Get Smoked On Cinemark Stock?
Why It Matters: It was reported in February that federal prosecutors have ramped up a probe into the activities of short-sellers, focusing on their potential use of illegal market manipulation such as “spoofing” and “scalping.”
GameStop was among the most heavily shorted stocks last year. The stock — a darling of the Reddit investor forum r/WallStreetBets — spiked in January 2021 as a wave of buying by bullish retail traders created a short squeeze. This resulted in huge losses for hedge fund short-sellers who had bet against these stocks.
GameStop continues to see high interest from retail investors ahead of the announcement of its fourth-quarter results on Thursday.
Its short percent of float has risen 8.53% since its last quarterly earnings report. The company said it has 11.94 million shares sold short, which is 18.95% of all its regular shares that are available for trading.
Price Action: GameStop closed 5.8% higher in Tuesday’s regular trading session at $82.64, but lost almost 1% in the after-hours session to $81.85.
Photo by Bill Jerome on Wikimedia
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Comments
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
