Wilton Risenhoover has been tracking the financial markets for more than a decade, but he has never seen so many retail traders in the stock market until now.
The meteoric rise of meme stocks such as AMC Entertainment (AMC) and GameStop (GME), which were up 2,449% and 1,458% respectively this year as of market close on Tuesday, has drawn experienced traders and first-time investors in the US and abroad.
"We are seeing global interest in these meme stocks in terms of subscriptions and in terms of traffic as well," Risenhoover, founder and chief executive of investment research firm Fintel, said in an interview.
Under these circumstances, his firm has built a powerful tool that aims to identify short-squeeze opportunities for retail investors. The Fintel short squeeze explorer ranks stocks based on their short squeeze scores, which take into account their short interests as a percentage of float, short borrow fee rates, trading volume, as well as other volatility and price momentum metrics.
Risenhoover said he started building the tool after GameStop shares soared into the stratosphere on the back of a short squeeze and gamma squeeze.
"There has always been a general interest in short squeezes over the years because they are really interesting and there's opportunities to make an extraordinary amount of money for a lot of people," he said. "But they happen so rarely and they are so hard to predict."
However, Reddit's 10 million WallStreetBets traders may have broken the mold. As traders shift their focus from one meme stock to the next, even non-traditional meme stocks such as Clover Health (CLOV) and Wendy's (WEN) can suddenly find themselves up 86% and 26% respectively in one day.
Like AMC and GameStop, these stocks have been heavily shorted for a long time but there is no guarantee of a short squeeze until a catalyst comes along, and that's why Risenhoover's model also tracks volatility and price momentum closely.
"You can see companies that are perpetually on the cusp of having a squeeze," he said, "but until you have both price and volume going up, you will not see a short squeeze."
With no further ado, here's a list of the top 20 most heavily shorted stocks primed for a squeeze based on Fintel's multi-factor quantitative model. The stocks, along with their tickers, relative short interests, and borrow fee rates are listed below, and ranked in ascending order of what Fintel calls their short squeeze scores. (All data are as of midday Tuesday, June 8, 2021.)
20. ShiftPixy
Ticker: PIXY
Market cap: $72.16 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 16.39%
Borrow fee rate: 63.75
Short squeeze score: 93.09
Source: Fintel
19. Immutep
Ticker: IMMP
Market cap: $345. 96 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: N/A
Borrow fee rate: 24.06
Short squeeze score: 93.15
Source: Fintel
18. Birks Group
Ticker: BGI
Market cap: $34.86 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 10.37%
Borrow fee rate: 120.61
Short squeeze score: 93.51
Source: Fintel
17. Senseonics Holdings
Ticker: SENS
Market cap: $1.25 billion
Short interest as a percentage of float: 34.55%
Borrow fee rate: 8.90
Short squeeze score: 93.53
Source: Fintel
16. Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust
Ticker: PEI
Market cap: $225.89 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 17.22%
Borrow fee rate: 8.87
Short squeeze score: 93.57
Source: Fintel
15. Lordstown Motors
Ticker: RIDE
Market cap: $2.2 billion
Short interest as a percentage of float: 34.42%
Borrow fee rate: 40.71
Short squeeze score: 93.63
Source: Fintel
14. Predictive Oncology
Ticker: POAI
Market cap: $77.22 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 12.77%
Borrow fee rate: 74.58
Short squeeze score: 93.86
Source: Fintel
13. Sphere 3D
Ticker: ANY
Market cap: $31.8 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 16.64%
Borrow fee rate: 34.47
Short squeeze score: 93.94
Source: Fintel
12. SoFi 50 ETF
Ticker: SFYF
Market cap: $22.38 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: N/A
Borrow fee rate: N/A
Short squeeze score: 94.43
Source: Fintel
11. Workhorse Group
Ticker: WKHS
Market cap: $1.6 billion
Short interest as a percentage of float: 43.17%
Borrow fee rate: 14.02
Short squeeze score: 94.64
Source: Fintel
10. Vinco Ventures
Ticker: BBIG
Market cap: $117.33 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 60.53%
Borrow fee rate: 59.37
Short squeeze score: 96.34
Source: Fintel
9. Vision Marine Technologies
Ticker: VMAR
Market cap: $77.54 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: N/A
Borrow fee rate: 80.24
Short squeeze score: 97.11
Source: Fintel
8. Constellation Pharmaceuticals
Ticker: CNST
Market cap: $1.6 billion
Short interest as a percentage of float: 16.21%
Borrow fee rate: 53.80
Short squeeze score: 97.23
Source: Fintel
7. SemiLEDs
Ticker: LEDS
Market cap: $83.19 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 23.50%
Borrow fee rate: 119.26
Short squeeze score: 97.28
Source: Fintel
6. Koss Corporation
Ticker: KOSS
Market cap: $229.53 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 30.52%
Borrow fee rate: 102.72
Short squeeze score: 97.59
Source: Fintel
5. GTT Communications
Ticker: GTT
Market cap: $175.28 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 22.17%
Borrow fee rate: 41.10
Short squeeze score: 97.74
Source: Fintel
4. Washington Prime Group
Ticker: WPG
Market cap: $90.93 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 37.24%
Borrow fee rate: 37.50
Short squeeze score: 97.77
Source: Fintel
3. MoSys
Ticker: MOSY
Market cap: $55.89 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 21.14%
Borrow fee rate: 92.31
Short squeeze score: 98.36
Source: Fintel
2. BriaCell Therapeutics
Ticker: BCTX
Market cap: $38.81 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: N/A
Borrow fee rate: 59.89
Short squeeze score: 98.38
Source: Fintel
1. RA Medical Systems
Ticker: RMED
Market cap: $24.58 million
Short interest as a percentage of float: 45.73%
Borrow fee rate: 162.56
Short squeeze score: 98.64
Source: Fintel