What happened
Shares of Angi (ANGI -1.20%) jumped by 13.5% Thursday even though there was no news out the home-services marketplace operator. Instead, a short squeeze appeared to be driving the stock's move, as there was unusually high trading volume in it during the session.
Image source: Angi.
So what
Trading volume for Angi was 3.1 million shares for the session, nearly triple its normal level and its highest volume in more than four months. That's a strong sign that a short squeeze played a role in the action Thursday, as 13% of the float (8.7 million shares) is sold short. In other words, a meaningful percentage of investors are betting that the stock will fall.
The stock rose steadily over the course of the session, another sign of a squeeze, with as many as 200,000 shares changing hands in a single trade.
Angi shareholders got some good news on Sept. 13 when the company revealed August metrics that were better than expected, including a 21% increase in revenue. That propelled the stock up by a double-digit percentage for last week overall, and may be encouraging more bullish bets now.
Now what
Angi, which was formed in 2017 when IAC engineered a merger between HomeAdvisor and Angie's List, has been a volatile battleground stock throughout its history. As the leading home-services marketplace, the company has a lot of potential, but has historically struggled to monetize interest from homeowners and disrupt a market valued at roughly $500 billion.
The company brought in a new CEO, Oisin Hanrahan, earlier this year, and rebranded itself as Angi. It's also betting on new concepts like Angi Services, a pre-priced service that makes booking jobs seamless for homeowners and service providers, and a new membership program, Angi Key, which offers benefits like 20% off pre-priced services for $30 a year.
If those new offerings catch on, the stock could have a lot of room to run from here.
