Retail investors on the hunt for the next short squeeze have a trio of potential targets.
JPMorgan flagged three names that are gaining steam with the retail cohort while seeing short interest from institutions climb.
In recent years, that’s the perfect combo for a short squeeze, which results when high investor demand forces short sellers to cover their positions and buy back the stock, sending prices surging.
In a note on Thursday, analyst Arun Jain highlighted three companies with high buying activity from retail investors that short sellers have been targeting:
JPMorgan Equity Strategy & Quantitative Research
JPMorgan Equity Strategy and Quantitative Research.
Retail investors were most bullish on Cipher last week. JPMorgan’s data shows that they purchased $14.2 million of the company’s stock.
TeraWulf, meanwhile, has the highest interest from short sellers, accounting for 40% of its total float. Nuvation has the second highest, at 28%, while Cipher’s sits at 20%.
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“This renewed buying comes despite elevated short interest (~20% of float) and softer 2Q 2025 mining revenue and earnings,” Jain said of Cipher stock.
The analyst added that while interest in Cipher from short sellers has declined recently, TeraWulf has seen short interest jump 8% in the last month.
Cipher jumped 10% in premarket trading on Thursday on news that Google would be taking a stake in the crypto miner as part of a deal it had reached with AI platform Fluidstack. A month earlier, TeraWulf stock surged on a similar deal.
Cipher shares ultimately reversed course on Thursday, tumbling 15% as the market headed toward the closing bell.
It’s hard to pinpoint what makes a particular stock attractive to retail investors week to week, but traders may have been drawn to Cipher and TeraWulf for their exposure to the crypto mining market.
Positive social media sentiment on Cipher has been the most consistent over the past month. Data from sentiment tracker Swaggystocks shows that while it has risen through September and bounced back from recent dips, sentiment has been more volatile for TeraWulf, and has declined recently.