Traders like heavily shorted stocks for two main reasons: either to bet on a decline in the company’s value, or to profit from a short squeeze.
Here's a look at the top 10 most shorted stocks in the market right now.
- WEN stock is heavily shorted. See the details here.
What Makes A Stock Heavily Shorted?
The primary reason a stock becomes “heavily shorted” is that a large number of experienced traders and institutional investors—known as short sellers—believe the company is fundamentally overvalued and that its price will fall.
Learn more about short interest here: Is Your Stock a Squeeze Target? How To Decode Short Interest Data
Short sellers borrow shares, sell them immediately at the current high price, and plan to buy them back later at a much lower price. The difference is their profit.
Heavily shorted stocks often reflect a strong, well-researched conviction among professional traders or institutions that the company faces serious risks.
Conversely, traders on the bullish side—often retail traders—view high short interest as a setup for potentially massive, fast gains through a short squeeze.
A short squeeze occurs when a stock’s price rises unexpectedly, forcing short sellers (who are now losing money) to frantically buy shares back to cover their positions. The forced buying creates a sudden spike in demand, which pushes the price even higher, trapping more short sellers in a dangerous feedback loop.
The volatility of a short squeeze can lead to returns that far exceed typical stock movements in a very short time frame.
Read Next: Alphabet Stock Is Extremely Overbought: Is A Google Pullback Coming?
Top 10 Most Shorted Stocks
Here are the most heavily shorted stocks (with market caps above $2 billion and free floats above 5 million) as of Nov. 26, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
In the table below, stocks are ranked by short interest—the total number of shares sold short and not yet covered, expressed as a percentage of shares available for public trading.
| Company Name & Ticker | Short Interest (%) [Nov. 26, 2025] |
| The Wendy’s Co. (NASDAQ:WEN) | 55.36% |
| Cambium Networks Corp. (NASDAQ:CMBM) | 50.03% |
| Lucid Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:LCID) | 48.99% |
| Wolfspeed, Inc. (NYSE:WOLF) | 48.18% |
| Hertz Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:HTZ) | 44.67% |
| Sable Offshore Corp. (NYSE:SOC) | 38.59% |
| Replimune Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:REPL) | 38.39% |
| Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (NYSE:HIMS) | 38.12% |
| aTyr Pharma, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATYR) | 37.92% |
| Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:NTLA) | 37.85% |
Reminders:
- Highly shorted stocks are battlegrounds where negative fundamentals meet speculative trading.
- Short squeezes can deliver huge, fast gains, but at very high risk and volatility.
- Monitoring the short interest leaderboard can help identify which stocks might be the next short squeeze, but timing such trades remains extremely challenging.
- Always conduct due diligence, as the volatility often reflects deep underlying risks and business uncertainty.
Photo: Shutterstock
