LogFAQs > #951393338

So I did some digging. There are currently 1,992,096 open GME options through January 2023. Most of these are short term options that expire by April 2021. If half of them are calls, and all of the open calls are exercised, this represents an obligation for the call writers to sell approximately 100 million shares. There are less than 70 million outstanding shares of GME, of which only about 45 million shares are in the float.

It is mathematically impossible for anything close to all of these calls to be covered with shares. Indeed, I would guess a large percentage of GME shareholders are not writing calls against their shares. The only way the calls could be properly covered would then be with other calls.

Which is possible, but this level of options activity looks unusual. I did a quick check with F and SPCE as a gut check - F had about 5% of the float as call interest (assuming half the options are calls) and SPCE had about 20% of the float as call interest (again assuming half the options are calls). Whereas GME looks to have about 220% of the float in calls. F and SPCE are fairly active stocks so I don't think my comparison should be too off base but if there are other stocks with anything like 200% of the float committed to calls, I'd be very interest to know that.

Did another gut check - AMC is at about 30% using the above analysis. So yeah, nothing like GME's 220%.

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