"Sneeze" versus "Squeeze"

• Most commentary and reporting on the events of January 2021 refer to those events as a "short squeeze"
• Others, notably GME shareholders on social media, commonly refer to that episode as "the sneeze," based on the belief that an actual short squeeze did not properly play, and that "shorts never closed"

Various sources, and ultimately the commonly found consensus is that in January 2021, there was definitively a short squeeze of GME. That, the thing that happened to GME was a short squeeze, it was an event in history that happened, those parties that held a GME short position got squoze, their short positions closed, then it ended, now it's over, an historical event that has passed.

For example, the Wikipedia article GameStop short squeeze plainly asserts that a short squeeze took place. The investopedia.com article short squeeze has a section about the "GameStop short squeeze," and also asserts plainly that such an event did happen.

In cases like this, a possible implication of the term "short squeeze" is that the events of January 2021 pertaining to GME amount now to a historical episode that happened, then it ended naturally, and now it is over. Yet, oftentimes, like in both of the information sources provided above, the magnitude of the situation is downplayed, and the severity of the actions taken is glossed over, such as when a multitude of market participants acted in unison to turn off the buy button for GME and other stocks. The action of disabling purchasing of stock for several days across most major stock brokerages provided a major break and advantage for those that were positioned short on GME, and ultimately interrupted the naturally occuring momentum that was raising the stock price. It was an unprecedented maneuver in response to a dramatic situation. Market personality Jim Cramer would later state candidly that "it was totally rigged."

While some amount of short covering and short closing certainly did occur, according to the SEC Staff Report on Equity and Options Market Structure Conditions in Early 2021 , "... it was the positive sentiment, not the buying-to-cover, that sustained the weeks-long price appreciation of GameStop stock." "While a short squeeze did not appear to be the main driver of events, and a gamma squeeze less likely, the episode highlights the role and potential impact of short selling and short covering."

The lack of transparency combined with the nature of the manipulative maneuvers taken by the incumbent financial institutions lead some GME shareholders to believe that shorts never closed — that the short obligations held by those GME bears still exist in some form, even though the great magnitude of short positions no longer appear in the GME short interest.

Based on the view that shorts never closed, many GME investors have concluded that what occured was not an actual short squeeze. Many investors continued to buy and hold shares of GME, with the belief that those hedge funds and other market participants were still obligated to eventually close their short position at some point, and when they do, the real short squeeze will happen.

Thus, this faction commonly refers to the events of January 2021 not as a squeeze but as "the sneeze."