Still an otherworldly amount of short positions coming due, and an awful lot of degenerates with diamond hands.
We don't know: * how many new short positions were opened * how many old ones were closed * what happened next to the shares involved in those transactions where retail investors moved 75M shares * where the shares came from in the trades where retail investors bought 74M shares
That's why Levine discusses many possible stories behind those numbers. The only real thing that many retail sales really does is contradict the "we're all HOLDING!!" story.
It could be that very little of that was closing the original Melvin positions... but we don't have evidence, do we? How can you prove that retail didn't sell 75M to people closing short positions, and then retail bought 74M back from the brokers those shares were returned to, while meanwhile, a bunch of new investors went short because 300 bucks is a bonkers price and they're betting they can wait it out a few months? Or anywhere in between?
Rinse and repeat over a few weeks and the positions are clear. It's expensive because there's lots of interest but the amount of float is allowing massive under-the-radar moves. Very soon people lose interest because there won't be much in the way of massive gains anymore
The fact that the price keeps picking back up after every single dip means only one thing. There's still massive pressure going on. If this market were rational, it would clear. It's not clearing. No way GME is worth $360.
If it weren't for the HODLers, the only thing that would drive the price back up would be news stories piquing interest. That's not what we're seeing here. It's picking right back up because the people the shorters wanted to sell, didn't.
I know people believe they know about who's doing what in specific, vs seeing just the aggregate numbers, but I haven't yet been convinced that anyone actually knows this. I'm seeing news coverage, I'm seeing people lobbying others to buy more, I'm seeing speculation about what short sellers are doing, I'm seeing people saying their newly going short... I'm not seeing up-to-the-minute specifics on "Melvin Capital has lost $X dollars" or "still holds Y short positions." Yet the logic behind the "squeeze" assumes that specific knowledge.
I see how what you say is a possible explanation for what we see. But I can also imagine other explanations.
The short sellers are betting that GME will go to 0.
One will win and the other will lose. The question is who has the edge?
Just look at what's happening with the market. Brokers are pulling all the shenanigans to convince normal people to sell. All the finance media are shilling for billionaire vulture short sellers. Has this ever happened in the history of finance?
Why are these things happening? Does it seem like the super smart billionaire vulture short sellers have the edge? If they do, why don't they come in and make moves to drive down the prices from current levels?
After all these millions of shares being traded, why is the short still above 100%