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Documented short-seller losses, billions, as estimated at the time

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-09-12, from Biggest Short Squeezes in History, Ranked.

as of table 3×5read in context →
Documented short-seller losses, billions, as estimated at the time — 3 rows by 5 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
episodeloss_low_bnloss_high_bnunitsource
Volkswagen, Oct 20082030EURhedge fund losses, contemporaneous estimates reported Oct 28 to 29, 2008
GameStop, Jan 202119.7519.75USDS3 Partners mark-to-market for January 2021, reported Jan 29
LME nickel, Mar 202288USDTsingshan paper loss at the Mar 8, 2022 peak, as reported that day
Rows × columns
3 × 5
Computed
Completeness
No missing values
Source
US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence
Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats
JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for Documented short-seller losses, billions, as estimated at the time, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
episode text 3 distinct values
loss_low_bn number 8 to 20 US dollars
loss_high_bn number 8 to 30 US dollars
unit text 2 distinct values (EUR, USD)
source text 3 distinct values

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.

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This is the exact query behind the result above. Change a ticker, a date or a column and run it against the warehouse — no account, no key. The no-signup tier is smaller than the one this page was computed on; a query that reaches past it comes back saying which plan runs it.

SELECT episode, loss_low_bn, loss_high_bn, unit, source
FROM (
    SELECT 'Volkswagen, Oct 2008' AS episode, 20.0 AS loss_low_bn, 30.0 AS loss_high_bn, 'EUR' AS unit, 'hedge fund losses, contemporaneous estimates reported Oct 28 to 29, 2008' AS source
    UNION ALL
    SELECT 'GameStop, Jan 2021', 19.75, 19.75, 'USD', 'S3 Partners mark-to-market for January 2021, reported Jan 29'
    UNION ALL
    SELECT 'LME nickel, Mar 2022', 8.0, 8.0, 'USD', 'Tsingshan paper loss at the Mar 8, 2022 peak, as reported that day'
) AS ranked
ORDER BY loss_high_bn DESC
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More from this analysisBiggest Short Squeezes in History, Ranked
Market value swing: capitalization before the squeeze and at the peak, billions table 2×5 → Peak multiple: highest print divided by the last close before the squeeze ranking 5×4 → The screened names ranked by short interest against shares outstanding (not float) table 10×5 → Highest days to cover among liquid names: latest settlement on file table 10×5 → GME weekly price range and shares traded, January through mid-February 2021 (as-traded prices) table 7×5 → GME options volume by week: calls vs. puts and total premium, January 2021 table 5×5 → See all 2,469 queries →