Some 7% of Reddit’s free share float (or more) has been sold short so far, according to an estimate from the analytics company Ortex cited by Reuters. That’s something the social platform was worried would happen, noting in its prospectus that retail traders in its subreddits (and particularly on r/WallStreetBets) could cause “extreme volatility” in Reddit’s share price. Those Redditors had already signaled in posts that they were planning to short the stock.

Public data revealing short interest positions on Reddit won’t be available until April 9.

Reddit shares fell as much as 11% at market open to a low of $51.52 after an already-bad Wednesday. Bloomberg reports that Wednesday’s decline was in part due to a Hedgeye Risk Management report naming Reddit as a short idea, saying the stock could plummet 50%.

Reddit’s share price in the low $50 range is still well above its IPO price of $34, and even above its impressive first-day closing price of $48, which had investors chattering about the company’s impressive gains.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Depends, Beyond Meat didn’t fall for two months and didn’t go under first day opening price for 10 months.

      • SkippingRelax@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Not a fan of artificial meat but I believe bm had a potential market that wanted their products, in a new industry that has plenty of potential.

        Besides pure speculation/gambling, what does reddit have to offer to genuine investors in 2024? They never made a profit, they don’t have a plan to make profit, they are alienating their users and their mods, they are low in the list of social media sites by usage with no credible plans to climb up the ladder. Really what’s in there to invest in?

        If I put money in a single stock ipo I want to believe that they are going public to raise funds that will be used to enact a credible businessplan. I might still be wrong and be left to hold someone else bag, but at least I believed in an idea.

        For the past few weeks teddit was trying to sell stock to their users and their employees families. That’s MLM marketing for you

    • perviouslyiner@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Isn’t it usually undervalued as a way to “pay” the institutional investors who pre-buy shares? Then they sell immediately after the first-day peak which makes the price drop.