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Squeeze-shaped mechanics: crowded shorts among liquid names, with a rising price

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 2026-08-24, from Short Squeeze Candidates This Week.

as of ranking 12×4read in context →
Squeeze-shaped mechanics: crowded shorts among liquid names, with a rising price — 12 rows by 4 columns, computed from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
tickerdays_to_covershares_short_mreturn_5d_pct
IBRX14.51295
GERN9.976.81.6
ABCL9.748.316
XBI9.578.86.4
RXRX9.3180.86.1
ALLO9.260.88.5
PTON8.961.10.9
CLVT8.852.89.4
NUVB8.753.412.9
FLO8.6444
WEN8.558.83.1
CPB8.448.25.3
Rows × columns
12 × 4
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 Squeeze-shaped mechanics: crowded shorts among liquid names, with a rising price, derived from the stored result.
ColumnTypeRangeNotes
ticker text 12 distinct values (ABCL, ALLO, CLVT…)
days_to_cover number 8.4 to 14.5
shares_short_m number 44 to 180.8 count
return_5d_pct number 0.9 to 16 percent

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.

the exact SQL behind every number
WITH latest AS (
    SELECT max(settlement_date) AS d FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
),
sessions AS (
    SELECT toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS session
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker = 'SPY'
      AND window_start >= now() - INTERVAL 20 DAY
      AND toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
        + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= 570
      AND toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
        + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) < 960
    GROUP BY session
    HAVING count() >= 380
    ORDER BY session DESC
    LIMIT 6
),
crowded AS (
    SELECT ticker, days_to_cover, short_interest
    FROM global_markets.stocks_short_interest
    WHERE settlement_date = (SELECT d FROM latest)
      AND avg_daily_volume >= 5000000
      AND days_to_cover >= 5
      AND ticker NOT IN ('SPCX')
      AND ticker NOT IN ('KORU','SOXL','SOXS','TQQQ','SQQQ','NVDL','NVDS','NVD','TSLL','TSLQ','TSLZ','SPXL','SPXS','UPRO','SPXU','LABU','LABD','FAS','FAZ','TNA','TZA','YINN','YANG','UDOW','SDOW','BOIL','KOLD','UCO','SCO','USD','SSO','SDS','QLD','QID','ERX','ERY','DRN','DRV','CURE','SOXY','MUU','SNXX','UVXY','SVXY','UVIX','SVIX','BULZ','WEBL','WEBS','DPST','DRIP','GUSH','AGQ','ZSL','BITX','ETHU','MSTX','MSTU','CONL','DUST','JNUG','JDST','NUGT')
      AND ticker NOT IN (SELECT ticker FROM global_markets.stocks_splits
                         WHERE execution_date BETWEEN today() - 60 AND today())
),
tape AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS session,
           argMax(close, window_start) AS rth_close
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker IN (SELECT ticker FROM crowded)
      AND toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) IN (SELECT session FROM sessions)
      AND toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
        + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) >= 570
      AND toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
        + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) < 960
    GROUP BY ticker, session
),
moves AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           round((argMax(rth_close, session) / argMin(rth_close, session) - 1) * 100, 1) AS return_5d_pct
    FROM tape
    GROUP BY ticker
    HAVING count() = 6 AND return_5d_pct > 0
)
SELECT c.ticker AS ticker,
       round(c.days_to_cover, 1) AS days_to_cover,
       round(c.short_interest / 1e6, 1) AS shares_short_m,
       m.return_5d_pct AS return_5d_pct
FROM crowded c
INNER JOIN moves m ON m.ticker = c.ticker
ORDER BY c.days_to_cover DESC, c.ticker
LIMIT 12

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