Shares of Krispy Kreme, GoPro and a few other highly shorted U.S. companies jumped before the bell Wednesday, with their names trending on social media forums a day after retail traders piled into department store company Kohl's.
Doughnut chain Krispy Kreme jumped 23%, building on a near 27% surge on Tuesday. About 32.2% of Krispy Kreme's free float was shorted, according to data analytics firm Ortex.
Meanwhile, camera maker GoPro rose about 45% to $2, on track to add to its more than 41% rise in the last session.
Plant-based meat company Beyond Meat, which has 38% of its free float in short position, jumped 15.6%. 1-800-Flowers.Com had a short interest of 71.66% of free float, according to Ortex, with the online gifts retailer's shares last up 14.1%.
Moves in Beyond Meat and 1-800-Flowers.Com were most susceptible to a short squeeze, Ortex said.
"With both stocks moving higher in premarket, the probability of that dynamic kicking in is rising, especially for BYND, where borrow demand is already high," Ortex's Peter Hillerberg said.
A short squeeze occurs when investors who had sold borrowed shares in the hopes of making money from a share price decline are forced to buy shares to close their losing positions.
The growing interest in heavily shorted stocks comes after Kohl's surged 37.6% in volatile trading on Tuesday, with the highest daily inflow from mom-and-pop traders in about three years, according to data from Vanda Research.
Kohl's was up 1.8% in choppy trading and is the second most trending ticker on Stocktwits, a retail investor-focused social media platform.
Opendoor Technologies, which has risen more than five fold so far this month, was down 5.6% on Wednesday.
The meme stock rally had exploded during the pandemic-era lockdowns in 2021, where amateur investors flush with savings and government stimulus felt encouraged to invest in stock markets through platforms that charged low trading fees.
They often bought shares of struggling companies, including video-game retailer GameStop and cinema chain AMC , with high short interest, burning hedge funds that were on the other side of the trade.