(Reuters) -Shares of U.S. department store chain Kohl’s more than doubled in value on Tuesday, making it one of the most-traded stocks on retail trading platforms and triggering a trading halt.
The stock is the No. 1 trending ticker on retail investor forum Stocktwits. About 49% of Kohl’s outstanding shares available for trading are shorted, LSEG data showed. After trading resumed, it was last up 30% at $13.32.
“Kohl’s has a lot of (fundamental) issues and yet this kind of crazy group move up just exemplifies what’s happening with the retail investor where they’re going to hop on superfast momentum stocks that we love to call meme stocks and hope to be able to make money,” said Kim Forrest, chief investment officer at Bokeh Capital Partners.
About 87 million shares traded hands by 10 a.m. ET, 11 times its 25-day moving average volume, bringing back memories of a ‘meme-stock’ rally from 2021 in highly shorted retail favorites such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment.
Meme stock rally burst into the open in 2021 when the COVID-19 lockdowns boosted savings, policy stimulus put cash into people’s pockets and extremely low interest rates pushed investors to the stock market.
Earlier this week, other highly shorted stocks such as Opendoor Technologies also witnessed strong retail interest. The online residential real estate platform’s shares were up 10%, having gained more than 300% over the past six sessions.
(Reporting by Johann M Cherian, Shashwat Chauhan, Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Arun Koyyur)
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