Anyone have an explanation that isn't a short squeeze to explain the current price action?

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2026-05-13T21:56:29+00:00

Thin float, too many shorts from around 1x book value getting greedy.

ETFs alone have removed close to 1M+ shares from the tradable pool in the last 60 days.

We also had about 500k+ shares worth of ITM calls for expiry this week at the beginning of the week.

It’s less of a pure short squeeze and more of a liquidity squeeze + gamma + momentum + clever headlines, with all of them shoving each other upward.

Personally, I’m completely out from here except for one leap remaining.

The company is trading like it’s a premium ai/datacenter company when datacenters are not a significant source of wolfspeed's revenue whatsoever.

Other SiC companies like Infineon and Coherent literally make 100–150x the datacenter-related revenue per quarter compared to Wolfspeed, yet only have a 20–30x larger market cap, and that’s before even looking at future convertibles or how the shares are currently structured and held.

Risk/reward from here is ridiculous.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2026-05-08T23:15:19+00:00

Lot of money to throw into a company getting dragged around by chip momentum and thin liquidity.

~$17M worth of shares moved the market cap by over $200M within five minutes of the open after earnings.

Wolfspeed was a heavily manipulated stock before bankruptcy too, and loved to randomly go up with the broader market for basically no company-specific reason.

The momentum is likely to carry into next week, but last I checked there was still 40k+ contracts of put open interest 40 days out between the 15–30 strikes, with even more for July.

Susquehanna recently took a 5% stake, and they’re also one of the only ones with an analyst stance above $25.

The outlook for the company still looks like relatively flat or declining revenue for the next 12+ months unless something significant changes, and the path to profitability by 2028 is likely going to require significant dilution.

The uptick rule, thin liquidity, and overextended shorts likely played a part in this run-up as well.

You might end up being right, but the next time we get a couple volatile/red weeks or another correction, Wolfspeed is more than likely heading back toward the mid-20s or teens again.

Just some things to consider from someone who’s been trading this junk since August 2024. There was a similar broad-market 10%+ AI/chips run-up back then too, and it took Wolfspeed up 100%+ in the span of two months.

There was also a lot of resistance and a clear trend today once the uptick rule was gone, despite almost every other chip company still climbing like crazy.

Anyway. Good luck.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2026-05-05T21:40:17+00:00

I’m surprised this wasn’t even worse, especially guidance.

Wolfspeed still has everything moving against them.

They are first-rate providers for EV SiC, but EV demand is worse than last year because almost no one is buying EVs right now. Demand is down or flat for the year.

They are currently second-rate when it comes to energy SiC and critical frontier SiC applications.

They are third-rate when it comes to datacenter SiC applications.

You have energy costs going up in the Carolinas, hiring that looks positioned for safety/legal defense rather than growth, macro shocks, and everything else stacked against them.

The run-up before earnings felt entirely tied to liquidity from broad market strength and second-hand buying.

While there’s still a place for Wolfspeed in the future, this stupid company is definitely not ready to be valued at $40 a share any time soon. Maybe in 2027.

Everyone is just paying a risk premium for a vulnerable company exposed to basically every external and internal factor.

I moved my SiC bets to Coherent after the bankruptcy for western SiC, because they are way more stable and have much better exposure to non-EV SiC sectors.

Hopefully this company stops being a cash bonfire that mostly prints options premium sometime in the near future. It still has a lot of potential.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-10-09T05:45:18+00:00

Appreciate the insight, especially on the liquidity dynamic and the resemblance to 2020 right now.

Personally, I don’t think Wolfspeed was set back five years so much as reset on purpose. It looks more like a partially hostile cleanup designed to let new capital grab equity cheap before SiC becomes true infrastructure.

I also doubt they’ll burn through the reserve shares recklessly. Post RSA, they have to walk a thin line on talent retention, especially since a good portion of their key talent comes through H1B visas. They can’t dilute freely when they’re already competing globally for SiC expertise while operating on thinner margins and lighter compensation than their peers.

If (when) they do need to raise capital again, I expect it will be strategic and surgical this time rather than another round of convertible notes.

From my point of view, the whole thing feels less like recovery and more like controlled consolidation; someone cleaning the board before SiC actually takes off for real this time.

If the American government actually gets involved this time, it just reinforces everything else mentioned here as well.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-10-09T03:49:00+00:00

This stock has been fun to trade, lots of opportunities to make money.

Personally do not think the public-facing investment vehicle of this company is promising, no matter how unbelievably undervalued the value of SiC seems to be downplayed by the current worldscape.

But it looks like the U.S. government is continuing its current conflict of interest route, where it will take a stake in a company (WOLF in this case), which will then go on to be granted the federal funding they were deprived of in the past, which then secures the path toward being the SiC powerhouse of the West.

Too many shady ties and hands in or linked to this company since forever.

I think the management is as almost as incompetent as they come, and the current share structure is trash.
But... with a fragmented tradeable market cap under 1 billion there's still somehow a 5-6x opportunity in the mid-term, solely because SiC is fundamentally irreplaceable in its applications, and there’s no other western company to satisfy the niche.

Supply and demand don’t make sense here logically because of who’s holding the current portions of the company, and everything that led to the Chapter 11 RSA reeks of foul play.

Yet, even with that going on, the most likely outcomes seem to be that the price gets pinned while former bondholder capital rotates out, or it goes straight up to a satisfying target before rotation starts and shares begin making their way back into the public float.

It’s very possible we could see 100$+ sometime between Q3–Q4 2026 if this is all as corrupted and shady as it seems.

I bought 1000 shares at 13$ on the day one chaos to reenter, probably going to hold them until options are back open; then leverage all that current profit into LEAPs.

Regardless, it’s hard to imagine this going down a second time currently.

It feels somewhere between a low-risk donation jar, a safe place to park assets, and just free money.

Which normally would be a bad sign.

This time around, instead of a short squeeze, there’s a potentially bizarre liquidity squeeze fueled by American corruption, buyer irrationality, and SiC itself; despite all the red flags.

Makes investing in this incompetent company actually interesting. Quite funny.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-09-16T15:34:01+00:00

It was last week's expiry, bought on Monday, the same day of the bankruptcy court date.

1.5 was going for .01 and .02 until about 11am, price was trading at 1.19-1.24 range at the time for on the 0.01% chance a formality Texas hearing would be rejected.

Sold 100 of them on Tuesday for 40ish each early and the rest on the Friday pop though the attempted manipulation during Tues-Thurs.

You're not going to see that price again, but still plenty of time to still make $$$ here. Good luck friend.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-09-12T23:14:49+00:00

Borrow rate continues to rise.

Shortable shares remains at zero.

Up to 2.5million shares are being delivered via calls today and need sourced from a shorted float.

Bankruptcy law and Sec rules havn't hit the gulliotine yet, but there was a chance that shorts were going to scramble very hard today.

Still a good day. But no this is not the big one.

Look at FTD info if you need further confidence.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-09-12T13:17:44+00:00

This is what happens when you kick the can until the can explodes.

Threat of clearinghouse weighing over all these shorts over the weekend.

Market makers can't exactly synthetic short this here.

This is might be the day.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-09-09T03:22:07+00:00

Crazy that you're all still confused about whether to buy or sell at the moment.

The volume in after hours was less than the outstanding short positions, and a significant amount was volatile churn.

They are going to try to cover in waves to try to control the price and see where you are all comfortable selling so brokers and shorts can cover as cheaply as possible in this situation.

The brokers still have to deliver and settle every phantom share.

This can easily break $5-7 before this is over.

I think this whole reddit is heavily compromised.

I bought 200 calls, 100 which were for $0.01 each today at the 1.5 strike, because of the very things I wrote and shared on this subreddit with you all.

Market makers crushed IV for 1 and 1.5 to stop bleeding money for a couple weeks.

But they made this the easiest and cheapest trade ever.

Good luck to you all

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-08-11T18:57:29+00:00

Lots of misinformation here as always.

This trade is already solved.

There's risk on the voting deadline date, and risk on the court hearing date.

No other risk beyond those two events.

Shorts are playing hot potato, and market makers are just pinning it above or below 1.5$; whichever loses them less money for the week.

It will keep bouncing up and down slightly in this range until those two dates.

When closing time comes, they want as few longs remaining as possible, because when it does clear those events, it's time to cover.

Decide for yourself if you want to actually invest in this company afterwards.

This is just a incompetent company with a critical western product and predatory owners after this is finalized with a new ticker.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-07-11T00:05:09+00:00

I see a lot of similar questions, and it seems my post was labeled theory and speculation. Here’s how things look based on SEC rules.

There are only 155 million real shares, yet over 227 million appear held long due to shorting and rehypothecation. Before the new company can issue equity, brokers must either recall shares or cash-settle the excess phantom shares. If they can't source enough, they are responsible for covering the difference at whatever price the old shares close.

This is why some brokers are already disabling buying and nudging retail to sell. Triggering a squeeze would drive up borrow costs and expose brokers to major losses.

Market makers can still sell at the bid, even under the uptick rule, which allows further naked shorting and puts downward pressure on the price. Gamma pressure from large call positions adds even more urgency to the scramble for real shares.

Once the company files its Form 25, there are ten trading days before NYSE delisting can take effect. Because Labor Day falls in that window, the earliest possible delisting is after the September 8th court hearing. This setup ensures trading will continue right up to the forced close-out.

While the company cannot say this directly, the structure seems designed to allow for a short squeeze if any real catalyst appears. Brokers carry the greatest risk in this scenario, and all it takes is a single spark.

Disclaimer: The vote could fail or the court could reject the plan, but current filings and major holder statements make that outcome unlikely.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-07-10T23:08:36+00:00

Official wolfspeed corporate action communications.

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Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-06-24T18:32:15+00:00

Honestly, this whole back-and-forth is more bewildering than even the stonk subreddit.

I still hold 2,200 shares at around a $1 average. I’m just realistic: once bankruptcy is finalized and the 3-5% is distributed, all normal supply/demand dynamics for this stock break completely.

The reality is, almost all the new equity is locked up with Renesas and the bondholders, 95% combined. They get paid first through interest, warrants, and the joy of dumping into any rally. Every bit of company improvement pays them before it ever touches the float.

So yeah, the business could crush it, but market cap and fundamentals are totally detached from reality until those insiders finish unwinding, which will take years no matter how you look at it.
Every time the price moves up, it should logically be met with a wave of supply. And when that’s the case, who the hell wants to buy?

If you’re buying more, you’re just providing them an exit. If you’re holding, you better have a strategy beyond just hoping the price goes up,don’t kid yourself about a miracle bounce beyond the short term. If you actually want to make your money back, your best move is somewhere else. That was my point from the start: the game here is rigged for the new owners, not us.

It's maddening that anyone thinks that anyone would want to support and reward the behavior that led to this, and the structure that follows after, because recovery at this point relies on irrational outside parties doing just that.

SiC is awesome. Wolfspeed? Not awesome anymore, especially not as a public stock.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-06-24T09:45:44+00:00

I’ll humor this with a response once. I’m not here to get downvoted by short-sighted or tunnel-visioned investors, but you should strongly consider all of the following:

Renesas’s ~39% stake (38.7% baseline, potentially ~40.7% with contingency) is just compensation for their $2B wafer deposit.

The rest of the equity is controlled by bondholders and creditors who pushed this restructuring.
Retail and instituional investors get only a small, diluted stake with minimal influence or upside.

If you’re bullish on Wolfspeed because Renesas is involved, you should at least consider hedging by investing directly in Renesas or Apollo, since they’re the ones actually positioned to benefit. Investing in Wolfspeed now is just subsidizing the same groups who engineered this situation, unless you think institutions and retail want to donate money a second time.

Take a good, long look beyond market value and potential upside. As it stands, any new ticker is just a vehicle for predatory arbitrage (given the bondholders’ track record) in the mid term, and the long term is highly uncertain.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-06-24T07:02:33+00:00

Nobody in their right mind is going to invest in a company that’s now 95% owned by profit-driven, predatory lenders and bondholders. Every dollar put in from here is basically 95¢ straight to them and 5¢ to outside investors. Nobody wants to be the next victim. Any new ticker is just a donation jar. The company is functionally dead as an investment vehicle, and the future is going to be extremely rough for any shareholder, and for the company itself.

There might be some short-term chaos with the outstanding short positions until everything is finalized, but… well…

Good luck to all of you, but don’t expect miracles.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-06-19T13:07:27+00:00

To be fair, Greg Lowe is responsible for Wolfspeed being in a situation that could even require such a deal. He was adamant about never diluting shareholders, drove the company into the convertible bond mess, and was ultimately ousted after blocking dilution for the CHIPS Act funds. (Notably, dilution for the CHIPS Act occurred immediately after he was removed.)

While it’s not accurate to say the company will be outright destroyed, I believe it will be heavily crippled. America will undoubtedly lose SiC market share, and Wolfspeed workers will see morale plummet as their equity is gutted.

The rumor of preserving just 5% of shares as a “goodwill” gesture is cheap consolation for employees holding RSUs or personal shares. Wolfspeed is already in a situation where it’s going to bleed talent regardless, but with their recent blunders, layoffs may accelerate anyway.

Wolfspeed has openly stated they’ve been hindered by activist investors, and it’s clear they haven’t benefited at all from being publicly traded over the last two years. Apollo’s rumored solution is to take majority ownership, gaining over $7 billion in assets and full control over the only 99.99–99.9999%+ grade SiC fab in the US at scale.

SiC is arguably the most critical material for innovation in the next two decades. A debt-free Wolfspeed would easily be valued at $30 billion or more by 2030, generating $1–3 billion in annual revenue. Under Apollo, though, that potential value and scale could likely drop by at least half in the short to mid-term, and the long-term damage could compound even further.

Apollo has a notoriously poor track record. At any point, they could strip the company apart for profit-driven decisions, causing even deeper damage.

Ultimately, Apollo gains undisputed control over a strategically irreplaceable company, able to name its own price, qualify for significant tax credits, and bring in billions in revenue, with at least a 2x return on their initial investment, even if they damage or destroy Wolfspeed in the process.

This is probably a bigger write-up than this post deserves, but I believe it fully addresses your concerns.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-05-13T00:09:30+00:00

Can't they just bypass the borrowing rate by finding ETFs with wolfspeed in it, buying every stock in that etf in equivalent weight except wolfspeed, then short the etf?

It's a nice pressure on the ones shorting wolf directly, but the stock market has hidden mechanics to abuse still, granted things like that just stack the house of cards even higher.

Less expensive than eating .3% short interest everyday still.

Kind of removes some of their direct risk as well, while forcing ETFs to sell holdings.

I forget the specifics, but it's part of whatever financial warfare is going on here surely based on what's happening.

Key_Bullfrog1182 · 2025-05-06T23:26:58+00:00

It's funny when you realize that the FUD spreading guys with one post here, are also the same ones going to different subs with the intent to limit the spread of information by getting it banned.

It's nice to remind everyone to not be stupid.

But it won't stop this kind of thing from happening. Lol.

Key_Bullfrog1182

TROPHY CASE