Stock up almost 300%, Short Position Doubles, Loses $3.5B, Squeezy Now.

HOOD is up nearly 300% year-to-date (YTD), including a 12% surge last Monday following the release of prediction market results.

The bullish case centers on service expansion, improving financial performance, rising customer engagement, market share gains, and S&P 500 inclusion.

The bearish case highlights an elevated price-to-earnings (PE) ratio, overdue correction risk, intensifying competition, and potential analyst downgrades.

HOOD remains a favorite on retail forums and chatrooms, with bullish sentiment. However, it is not a meme stock—its institutional long holdings data show 21% active and 55% passive ownership, though both have declined since the start of the year. Sell-side analysts remain broadly bullish on HOOD.

S3’s real-time short interest data shows a steady climb throughout the year, placing the stock in short squeeze risk territory multiple times—including recently.

This simultaneous rise in short interest and stock price reflects a reversal or value strategy, and short sellers are incurring increasingly steep losses totaling $3.55B.

S3 Partners short squeeze score for HOOD topped 70 twice before, but each spike was brief and modest—lasting only a day or two—and didn’t trigger a squeeze.

The stock declined after its last two earnings reports, both of which missed expectations. S3 forecasted the most recent earnings correctly. While earnings are positive, the PE ratio continues to expand without corresponding growth, raising concerns about valuation.

Part of the recent increase in short interest may relate to index inclusion flows involving the delivery of shares to funds tracking the S&P 500.

HOOD is not heavily crowded—short interest % of float stands at just 5%, and its crowded score is 30. Short squeeze risk is high given last week’s return and will persist if the stock continues to rise, but may subside if price action stabilizes.

HOOD is more correlated to the tech sector than the financial sector, with a beta of 2.7 to the S&P 500 and 2.0 to the Nasdaq-100 (NDX). This correlation is relevant for trading and hedging HOOD, and measuring the Value at Risk (VaR) of long and short positions.

Volatility has declined as prices rise—a common pattern relating to volatility and price.

Implied volatility has been rising recently, driven by call buying to initiate long positions or put buying to hedge existing longs. Rising implied volatility during a rally often reflects disbelief in the move—suggesting bubble-like conditions and reinforcing short-selling sentiment data.

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The information herein (some of which has been obtained from third party sources without verification) is believed by S3 Partners, LLC (“S3 Partners”) to be reliable and accurate. Neither S3 Partners nor any of its affiliates makes any representation as to the accuracy or completeness of the information herein or accepts liability arising from its use. Prior to making any decisions based on the information herein, you should determine, without reliance upon S3 Partners, the economic risks, and merits, as well as the legal, tax, accounting, and investment consequences, of such decisions.