The meme stock craze is heating up again. Three of the most heavily shorted stocks, Bed Bath & Beyond , AMC Entertainment and GameStop all surged Monday with no apparent catalyst. Yet Bed Bath & Beyond Both was the most mentioned stock on Reddit’s WallStreetBet’s discussion board Monday, with Gamestop coming in at No. 3, according to Quiver Quantitative . All three stocks were lower at midday Tuesday after running up Monday. The meme stock phenomenon took hold last year when a group of traders from WallStreetBets piled into GameStop to push up the price in what’s known as a short squeeze. A short squeeze occurs when a stock that investors had bet against instead moves higher, forcing short sellers to buy back stock to cut their losses and pushing the stock higher still. What follows are some other stocks that could be short squeeze candidates. To find these names, CNBC Pro simply looked for the top 15 stocks with the largest short interest as a percentage of their freely traded shares among companies in the S & P 1500 index, consisting of large-, mid- and smallcap names. Dick’s Sporting Goods took the top spot, with 27% of its float shorted. The stock is up almost 35% in the third quarter. Another consumer cyclical name, Urban Outfitters , has 26% of its available shares shorted and has gained 18% so far this quarter. Meanwhile, 23% of open Sonic Automotive shares are shorted. The company, which is up 23% this quarter, reported an earnings and revenue miss in late July. Clothing company Guess is also heavily bet against, with almost 22% of its open shares shorted. The stock has gained almost 19% in the third quarter. The financials weren’t immune, either. B. Riley Financial has 21% of its open shares on the market shorted. The stock has risen 34% this quarter. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting.
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