Jul. 8 at 2:15 PM
$GRPN - I reran the numbers: Great, let’s use GRPN’s actual numbers to practice turning data into a clear risk/reward view instead of vibes.
1. Short interest: what does the data say?
From multiple sources:
Shares short: around 12.6–13.7 million.
Float: roughly 21–23 million shares.
Short percent of float: 54–61% of the float (depending on the date).
Days to cover: about 6–7.6 days.
So: More than half of the tradable shares are sold short.
At current average volume, it would take almost a week for shorts to fully cover if they all tried at once.
This is not “a bit elevated.” It’s top‑of‑the‑leaderboard squeeze fuel.
2. Buyback: how big is it vs market cap?
From recent commentary and earnings:
Buyback authorization: around
$245M remaining under the program.
That’s on the order of 40–45% of market cap when the stock was in the mid‑teens.
Share count already down ~6% quarter‑over‑quarter from repurchases.
So: The company is not dumping stock; it is aggressively retiring it.
Management is willing to use nearly half of the current market cap to buy back shares at these levels.
This tells you:
Float is shrinking, not expanding.
Corporate supply is negative (buybacks), not positive (issuance).
3. What’s changed? (The “do the math” part)
Combine those:
Before the move:
~50–60% of float short.
A buyback that can retire a huge chunk of market cap.
An off‑balance‑sheet asset (Sum Up stake) that some estimate at hundreds of millions.
During/after the move:
Short interest is still very high: there is no evidence that shorts have magically all covered.
Buyback capacity is still large; earnings commentary indicates over
$200M remains.
Share count has already started to come down.
So the core mechanics have not flipped just because the price moved 60%:
Shorts are still structurally exposed.
The company is still structurally buying.
The float is still structurally tight.
That’s what “do the math, what has changed?” actually means: check if the key inputs (short %, buyback size, float) are genuinely different, or if people just feel different because the chart ticked up.
4. Options, dealers, and patience
On options and gamma:
There are active call trades (e.g. July 25 calls) specifically targeting GRPN as a high‑momentum, high‑short‑interest setup.
When price rises, dealers hedging those calls often buy stock to stay delta‑neutral.
On the way down, every level lower lets them reduce hedges; on the way back up, they must re‑engage hedges, adding demand again.
