Meme stocks: Bed Bath & Beyond, AMC, GameStop soar in early trading

Yahoo Finance Live anchors discuss short interest in Bed Bath & Beyond stock as well as broader interest in meme stocks taking hold again.

Video Transcript

BRAD SMITH: Also here before we go, we've got to check out some of the meme madness. Is it back, shares of Bed Bath & Beyond?

JULIE HYMAN: Yes.

BRAD SMITH: The ticker symbol BBBY trending way up this morning, as the meme community backing the stock over the weekend into today. It looks to help the company rebound from a rough year so far, to put it lightly.

Here's what's critical to note as well, there's about 40%-- a little over 40% of the shares, the total outstanding shares, that are actually floated. They are short right now. So that short interest position sitting above 40% makes it a prime candidate for a short squeeze to try and move in. And that's perhaps--

JULIE HYMAN: That's what that chart looks like to me.

BRAD SMITH: Exactly. Yeah.

BRIAN SOZZI: That is on the mark. I actually thought it was because Bed Bath was going to start selling ballpark hot dogs, but maybe not. But this-- on a series note, there was some chatter this morning that Bed Bath was nearing some form of debt raise or credit raise. And I reached out to Bed Bath, they did not return my request for comment.

But let's keep in mind, they need cash. They exited their most recent quarter with, I believe, $108 million in cash out of a holiday season. That is not good. And any debt they do raise is going to come at a significantly higher-- or significantly high interest rate that is ultimately going to hurt this company even more than it already is.

JULIE HYMAN: So all of these guys are flying the traditional-- whatever that means-- meme stocks, right? So we've got AMC spiked today, paused due to volatility. And remember, AMC on Friday initially fell after announcing its plan to offer preferred shares that might eventually be convertable into actual shares of the company. The shares fell and then spiked by the day's end.

GameStop was paused due to volatility as well, after seeing a big surge in initial trading. I was gonna say, you know, maybe these guys are all merging at some point, right?

BRIAN SOZZI: You can ask Adam Aron.

JULIE HYMAN: We're gonna have Adam Aron on later in the program. And we can ask him, you know, why buy popcorn from an external source? Why not-- you can buy Bed Bath which sells popcorn and have-- I don't know.

BRIAN SOZZI: That's good.

BRAD SMITH: A merger of the memes.

BRIAN SOZZI: Tie it all together.

JULIE HYMAN: I don't know, something.

BRIAN SOZZI: You're--

JULIE HYMAN: Something.

BRIAN SOZZI: --embracing the spirit. I love it.

JULIE HYMAN: Something.

BRAD SMITH: Memes unite.