[hmmhmmcamo]

Here's an interesting article about a short squeeze that happened this century. Be warned it is kinda long but at the very least check out the Volkswagen stock graph around 2008...that is what some people are speculating could happen to Game Stop in the near future given the current excessive short positions https://moxreports.com/vw-infinity-squeeze/

Prior to 2008, Porsche had already been a significant shareholder in VW. Then in October 2008 Porsche took its stake to 30%, even getting board approval to ultimately take that stake to over 50%. However, statements from Porsche at the time had led most investors to believe that Porsche would not be attempting a full-blown takeover.

Next, the government fund of Lower Saxony (the home province of VW in Germany) owned an additional 20% of VW as a strategic stake.

In addition, various index funds owned around 5% of VW due to VWs large weighting in the DAX index. These index funds were required to hold VW in proportion to its weight in the DAX, such that they would not be able to sell simply due to changes in the price of VW. Volkswagen alone made up 17% of the DAX index at the time.

Looking at the above, it is clear that heading into October of 2008, around 55% of VW shares were already unavailable in the market for any realistic purposes. As a result, when Porsche increased its stake by an additional 44%, it meant that the true available float went down from 45% of outstanding shares to around just 1% of outstanding shares. Suddenly the seemingly “low” short interest of 12.8% turned in to a massive supply and demand imbalance. Millions of shares needed to be bought immediately even though there were simply no shares available to be sold.

Just to ensure that short sellers fully understood the urgency of their calamity, Porsche made sure to include in its announcement a few words to address the short position.
Porsche stated that they had:
“decided to make this announcement after it became clear that there are by far more short positions in the market than expected.”

Porsche added that:
“the disclosure should give so-called short sellers – meaning financial institutions which have betted or are still betting on a falling share price in Volkswagen – the opportunity to settle their relevant positions without rush and without facing major risks.”


Despite the disarming choice of wording, the statement from Porsche had precisely the effect that anyone would have expected. The announcement triggered a mass panic for the exits by anyone who was short shares of VW.
Porsche had also made this announcement on a Sunday, when the market was closed. As a result, the message would be widely disseminated at a time when short sellers would have zero ability to cover their positions until the market reopened.

As a result of its skillful financial engineering, Porsche netted itself more than $10 billion in profits in a matter of just a few short weeks. It was money that was badly needed by Porsche. Luxury car sales were plunging due to the crisis and Porsche was already saddled with significant debt.
On the other side of the trade, the hedge funds who had sold VW short quickly saw their collective losses exceed $30 billion. Hedge fund managers were “literally in tears on the phone” as they described “a nuclear bomb going off in our faces.”