Short sellers usually hold for less time than investors with long positions due to the potential for a short squeeze caused by an acceleration in buying pressure and short covering. As a result, short sellers generally cover short sales quickly on a turnaround in market sentiment to limit potential losses. The higher the short interest and SIR in a stock’s float, the greater the risk that short covering may occur in a disorderly fashion, leading to short squeezes.

In this case, if the stock drops to $45, it means that you are profitable. To understand what short covering is, it is also important to focus on what a short squeeze is. When you open a long trade, the maximum loss you can make is the amount of money you invested in. Short covering refers to the process of buying back securities in order to close out an open short position. Well, if the trader made the correct decision and was able to buy back the stock at a lower price, then they buy it back, and the trade is closed, and the trader makes a profit.

If you want to understand short selling and short squeezes, then you’ll need to know about short covering, too.

According to the math, Joe will generate a revenue of $10,000 ($30,000 – $20,000). He sold his borrowed stocks at $30,000 (1,000 shares x $30) and bought them at $20,000 (1,000 shares x $20,000). Investors who cover a short position at a higher price than they initially shorted the stock for will incur a loss. Before initiating a short position, investors should monitor a stock’s short interest and SIR to determine the likelihood of a short squeeze occurring. Using Joe’s investment, let’s assume that after the first month, stock prices start moving in the opposite direction. Instead of the price going down, it starts rising by 12% per day.

Joe and other traders will rush to close their short position before they incur more losses. Short covering, also called “buying to cover”, refers to the purchase of securities by an investor to close a short position in the stock market. The investment firms with large short positions, among many other investors, clamored to cover their shorts. The stock’s price increased by nearly 1,700% in less than a month, enabling investors who owned GameStop stock outright to enjoy incredible gains.

How Do You Cover a Short Position With Options?

This signifies shorts may be moving to the ask price just to get out of their positions. A short squeeze can look like a quick move to the upside. Or the stock might slowly grind its way up in price, as each dip is bought up.

• Volatility is awesome …  unless you’ve got a small account and you’re short biased.
• For example, a trader sells short 100 shares of XYZ at $20, based on the opinion that those shares will head lower.
• Short build-up is a term often heard in futures and options trading.
• The material has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research.

Short covering is necessary in order to close an open short position. A short position will be profitable if it is covered at a lower price than the initial transaction; it will incur a loss if it is covered at a higher price than the initial transaction. Short selling is a way to bet that price of a stock will decline. The way traders can exit a short position is to buy back borrowed shares in order to return them to the lender, which is known as short covering. Therefore, short covering simply refers to the process of buying back securities in order to close out an open short position.

How is a Day Trader’s Workday Divided? Key Market Sessions!

The goal of short covering is to sell a security and buy it back at a lower price. It’s estimated that GameStop short sellers lost a total of $3.3 billion during the 2021 short-covering rally. A short cover is when an investor sells a stock that he or she doesn’t own, it’s known as selling the stock short.

CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 72% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. CFD and Forex Trading are leveraged products and your capital is at risk. Please ensure you fully understand the risks involved by reading our full risk warning. For assessing the potential risk to short sellers, it’s important to look at changes in this figure.

Example: Short Squeeze

You can use my no-cost resources to start to learn to think for yourself. Volatility is awesome …  unless you’ve got a small account and you’re short biased. Then you might get squeezed out before your indicators bear out.

The GameStop Short Squeeze

When you go short, you can lose more than you’ve put in. While there aren’t any dead giveaways when it comes to identifying short covering, there are certain indicators you can look out for to help you better identify a short covering rally. If short interest starts falling and market prices start rising, you could be looking at the start of a short-covering rally. To understand how short covering works, we first need to look at how to short sell a stock. For starters, short interest refers to the percentage of a stock that is held by short-sellers. A higher number means that a company’s stock is under intense pressure from short-sellers.