What Wall Street’s ‘Short Squeeze’ Means for Investors and Regulators

Link: https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/what-wall-streets-short-squeeze-means-for-investors-and-regulators/

Excerpt:

The consternation over the stock price surges at GameStop and AMC is rooted in their disconnect with their financial performance – both companies are losing money, made worse by the pandemic lockdowns.

The other shoe is yet to drop for those who bid up the share price of GameStop, according to Indarte. “I think we’re going to see more pain felt potentially by the retail investors that are in effect bidding up the price of GameStop,” she predicted. “It’s hard to justify the prices that we’ve been seeing for the company, based on the company’s fundamentals.” In the latest quarter, GameStop reported a 30% fall in revenues to $1 billion and a loss of $18.8 million. Similarly, AMC has also shuttered most of its theaters, and recently secured $917 million in financing to stave off bankruptcy.

In addition to the soundness of its fundamentals, a company’s stock price can also be driven by investor sentiment, “but there is large heterogeneity between different companies for the importance of both,” according to Binsbergen. Much of the price discovery depends on the liquidity and the total market capitalization of the stock, he noted. Small and illiquid stocks are more susceptible to non-fundamental price movements than larger stocks, he explained.

Author(s): Jules H. van Binsbergen, Sasha Indarte

Publication Date: 29 January 2021

Publication Site: Knowledge @ Wharton