(Reuters) -Shares of some highly-shorted companies, including Krispy Kreme and GoPro, jumped in premarket trading on Wednesday, aided by their names trending on social media forums a day after retail traders piled into department store company Kohl’s.
Doughnut chain Krispy Kreme jumped 16.1%, building on a near 27% surge on Tuesday. About 14% of Krispy Kreme’s outstanding shares available for trading are shorted, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Camera maker GoPro also surged about 47% to $2.01. Short interest on the stock was last at 7.7%.
Another highly shorted stock – with short interest at 36.7% – was plant-based meat company Beyond Meat, whose shares jumped 10.4% on Wednesday.
The growing interest in heavily shorted stocks comes after Kohl’s surged 37.6% higher in volatile trading on Tuesday on the back of high retail interest.
Mom-and-pop traders bought $9.64 million of its shares that day, the most by this category of investors in about three years, according to data from Vanda Research.
Kohl’s was flat in premarket trading on Wednesday but is the third most trending ticker on Stocktwits, a retail investor-focused social media platform.
Among other highly shorted names, online gifts retailer 1-800-Flowers.Com rose 8.1%. Opendoor Technologies, which has rocketed 440% so far this month, was down 2.6% on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Shashwat Chauhan in Bengaluru; Editing by Ronojoy Mazumdar)
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