LONDON (Reuters) – Investors are estimated to have made billions of dollars from their bearish bets on Tesla and major technology stocks in the recent sell-off triggered by a jump in U.S. Treasury yields, data from financial analysis company Ortex showed Tuesday.
Tesla was the biggest win over short sellers, with estimated profits of $ 4.2 billion to date in 2021, followed by more than $ 1 billion in profits on Zoom Video and Apple, according to Ortex.
However, they were burned by betting against video game maker Gamestop. The company, which was at the heart of the so-called “stonks” retail trading craze, is up an additional 400% in the past two weeks as amateur investors jumped back in.
GameStop’s e-commerce strategy plans propelled this week’s renewed gains in January’s ‘meme’ stocks, alongside speculation that small investors will use their upcoming stimulus vouchers to trade.
In other major bets, investors made about $ 1 billion by shorting QQQ, an ETF that tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100. The tech-heavy benchmark correction area on Monday, down more than 10% from record highs.
Reporting by Thyagaraju Adinarayan; edited by Sujata Rao