The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) may be sinking notably lower on Thursday but the same cannot be said for the InvoCare Limited (ASX: IVC) share price.
In morning trade, the funerals company's shares were up as much as 10% to $12.65.
The InvoCare share price has since given back some of these gains but is still up a solid 6.5% to $12.25 at the time of writing.
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Why did the InvoCare share price rocket 10% higher?
The catalyst for the impressive gain by the InvoCare share price is one of the stranger ones you'll see this year.
As you may have read here earlier, traders from Reddit have been rushing in to buy GameStop shares this week in an attempt to crush short sellers and drive its share price significantly higher via a short squeeze.
A short squeeze is what happens when short sellers have to close their positions in a hurry because a share price is going higher. By buying back shares to close positions, the short seller adds to the buying pressure and helps drive the company's shares even higher.
The GameStop trade has been a huge success for Redditors, with the GameStop share price rocketing higher, leaving hedge funds nursing huge losses.
But what about InvoCare?
It appears as though short sellers have been closing their positions in InvoCare in a hurry today amid concerns that Australian Redditors could make the funerals company their GameStop.
According to the AFR, Goldman Sachs named InvoCare as the ASX share most at risk of a short squeeze due to its high proportion of shares shorted compared with its average daily volume traded.
Goldman notes that it would take 33 days to unwind all the shorts based on its average daily trading volume. Given just how much buying that would involve and the limited supply, this would almost certainly drive the InvoCare share price notably higher.
It certainly appears to be a dangerous time to be a short seller right now.
