Opendoor just rocketed 175% — Wall Street loves it, but should you be worried?

Opendoor's stock surged by 175% this week, reversing earlier losses, fueled by retail investor enthusiasm and endorsement from hedge fund manager Eric Jackson. The surge triggered a short squeeze due to high short interest, with trading volumes ex...

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Opendoor’s stock went up by more than 175% this week. Before this, the stock was down over 50% in 2024. This sudden rise happened mostly because of hype from regular investors and a hedge fund manager’s support.

Eric Jackson, who runs EMJ Capital, a hedge fund in Toronto, posted about Opendoor on social media last week. He said Opendoor has cut costs and is working hard to become profitable, according to the report by GuruFocus.

Big hype and huge buying

His post got a lot of attention and got people excited to buy the stock. By Friday afternoon, the stock jumped another 39%. That made Opendoor's biggest weekly gain in its history. About 340 million shares were traded on Friday alone—that's more than 3 times the usual trading volume, as per the reports.


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Almost 24% of Opendoor’s publicly available shares are being shorted, people are betting the stock will go down. That’s a big number and helped create a “short squeeze,” where short sellers rush to buy the stock to cover their losses, which pushes the price up even more, as per the report by GuruFocus.

Some think it will drop again

Options trading also exploded—especially for call options. This caused implied volatility to go way up. But not everyone thinks the stock will keep going up—put options (bets that the stock will go down) also spiked late on Friday, as stated in the reports.

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Opendoor went public in 2020 through a SPAC, which is a special kind of IPO. It was very popular during the pandemic but kind of disappeared from the spotlight after that.

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Now it’s back in focus, partly because of how stocks like GameStop and AMC moved in the past—people see Opendoor as another “heavily shorted” stock that can pop. It’s still unclear if this stock rally will continue or crash soon, as stated by GuruFocus reports.

FAQs

Q1. Why did Opendoor stock go up 175% this week?
Opendoor stock jumped because of retail investor hype and support from hedge fund manager Eric Jackson.

Q2. Is Opendoor’s stock rally a short squeeze?
Yes, a high short interest of 24% likely caused a short squeeze that pushed the stock up fast.
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