Short squeeze hits high note as shares of Guitar Center climb. (Wall Street West).G Center Inc. reverberated on Wall Street last week, reporting a comparable-store sales increase of 7 percent in the fourth quarter, and raising its quarterly earnings guidance -- this despite a holiday season that turned out to be quiet for many retailers. The Westlake Village-based music retailer had Internet Internet Publicly accessible computer network connecting many smaller networks from around the world. It grew out of a U.S. Defense Department program called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), established in 1969 with connections between computers at the message boards and industry pundits humming, and its stock surged as much as 27 percent. Schaeffers Research, a "quantitative" investment research firm led by the dean of chart watchers, Bernie Schaeffer, highlighted Guitar Center in its daily "'Herd' on the Street" feature. "The stock's 10-day and 20-day trendlines are now turning higher and approaching a bullish Bullish Word used to describe an investor's attitude. Bullish refers to an optimistic outlook, while bearish means a pessimistic outlook. bullish crossover' noted columnist columnist, the writer of an essay appearing regularly in a newspaper or periodical, usually under a constant heading. Although originally humorous, the column in many cases has supplanted the editorial for authoritative opinions on world problems. Beth Gaston. On a more cautious note, a Motley Fool poster named "Ditty dit·ty n. pl. dit·ties A simple song. [Middle English dite, a literary composition, from Old French dite, from Latin dict " -- who has shorted Guitar Center's stock in the past -- lamented la·ment·ed adj. Mourned for: our late lamented president. la·ment  ed·ly adv. that the ambitious retailer has focused on "growth alone and at any cost." No wonder short sellers are singing such a sad tune: Nearly 3 million of Guitar Center's shares were sold short as of Dec. 9, the last time data was collected. That's more than 17 times the issue's average daily volume. When the positive news broke, a classic "short squeeze Short Squeeze A situation in which a lack of supply and an excess demand for a traded stock forces the price upward. Notes: Short squeezes occur more often in smaller cap stocks with small floats. " ensued, forcing short sellers to buy shares in the open market to replace the ones they had previously sold in a bet the stock would go down. Amid the squeeze, Guitar Center's stock price surged as high as $21.45 each, a new 52-week high, compared with a price of $16.86 at the close of markets on Jan. 6, prior to the company's upbeat earnings forecast. |
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