Remember Beyond Meat? That plant-based burger company that was supposed to revolutionize how we eat? Well, it just pulled off something way more impressive than making vegetables taste like beef – it absolutely demolished short-sellers in what might be the most brutal financial beatdown since GameStop made hedge funds cry in 2021.
Here’s what went down: Beyond Meat stock went completely bonkers last week, shooting up over 1,300% in just four days. Yes, you read that right – thirteen hundred percent. That’s the kind of gain that makes people quit their day jobs and start day-trading from their mom’s basement.
But here’s the kicker – while the stock came back down to earth on Wednesday and Thursday (because gravity is still a thing, apparently), the damage to short-sellers was already done. These are the folks who bet against the stock, essentially saying “this company is trash and we’re going to profit when everyone realizes it.”
Plot twist: They were very, very wrong.
According to S3 Partners (the people who track this stuff), short-sellers lost over $120 million in just a few days. To put that in perspective, they went from being up $80 million for the year to being down $45 million. That’s like thinking you’re winning at poker all night, then losing your house, car, and dignity in one hand.
The whole thing started when a Dubai-based trader known as “Capybara Stocks” (because of course that’s his name) posted on Reddit that he’d bought a massive chunk of Beyond Meat shares. This kicked off a retail trading frenzy that would make the WallStreetBets crowd proud.
What made this particularly painful for short-sellers is that Beyond Meat had a lot of “short interest” – meaning tons of people were betting against it. When the stock started rocketing up, these investors had to buy shares to cover their positions, which pushed the price even higher. It’s like a financial avalanche, but instead of snow, it’s made of regret and margin calls.
The numbers are honestly wild: short-sellers had to buy back 5.7 million shares just to stop the bleeding. Currently, about 49% of Beyond Meat’s available shares are still being shorted, which means there are still plenty of people betting this whole thing will collapse.
Will it? Who knows. The stock market has basically become a casino where the house sometimes loses spectacularly, and retail traders armed with memes and Reddit posts can move billions of dollars. Beyond Meat might be a legitimate investment opportunity, or it might be the financial equivalent of a flash mob – exciting while it lasts, but ultimately just a bunch of people doing something weird together.
Either way, this whole saga proves one thing: never underestimate the power of internet strangers with trading apps and too much time on their hands. They might just cost you $120 million.