What retail is watching, before it shows up in price
WallStreetBets trending tickers and a short squeeze watchlist, ranked by mentions and short interest.
Illustrative example, not live data. Two separate feeds, same as the terminal.
What is the Socials tab?
WallStreetBets Trending ranks tickers by how often they show up in r/WallStreetBets posts and comments. Each row carries the current mention count, how that count moved over the last 24 hours, and a basic sentiment read, so you can tell a ticker that's freshly climbing in attention from one that's already cooling off.
The Short Squeeze Watchlist pulls from the same mention data through a separate view built around short interest instead of raw mention volume. It surfaces tickers where short float and rising retail attention show up together: short float percentage, days to cover, and mention count, all on the same row.
Put side by side, the two panels answer different questions with related data. One tells you what Reddit is talking about right now. The other tells you which of those names also carry the kind of short interest that makes a mention spike worth more than idle chatter.
What OpticAlpha shows
WSB trending tickers
Ranked by mention count with a 24-hour change, so a ticker's rise or fall in attention is visible at a glance, not just its current rank.
Short squeeze watchlist
Short float percentage and days to cover sit next to mention count for each ticker, surfacing names where retail attention and short interest are building together.
Sentiment read
A basic bullish or bearish tilt attached to each trending ticker, giving a quick sense of tone without opening the thread.
Reflexive data
The terminal tracks the same signal retail traders are already watching, so you see what's driving attention instead of reacting to it after the fact.
See it live
How traders use this
A jump in mention count on its own doesn't mean much. Tickers get talked about because they're in the news, because a post went viral for reasons that have nothing to do with the fundamentals, or because a handful of accounts posted the same thing within an hour of each other. Treating a mentions spike as a buy signal by itself is how people end up chasing a name after most of the move already happened.
The setup worth watching looks different: a low-float stock carrying high short interest at the same time mentions are climbing fast. That combination means a real short base has to cover into a stock that doesn't have much float to absorb the buying, while retail attention adds fresh demand on top of it. Neither ingredient alone is much of a story. Together, they are.
Days to cover is the number that tells you how forced that covering could be. A reading above 5, paired with mentions that are actively rising rather than flat, is the specific combination that has historically preceded real short squeezes. Below that, a name on the squeeze watchlist is more of one to keep an eye on than a setup that's actually building.
Terms on this page
- Short float
- The percentage of a company's tradable shares that are currently sold short.
- Days to cover
- How many trading days it would take short sellers to close their entire position at average daily volume.
- Short squeeze
- A rapid price rise forcing short sellers to buy back shares to limit losses, which itself pushes the price higher.
- Mention count
- How often a ticker is referenced in WallStreetBets posts and comments over a given window, used as a proxy for retail attention.
- Sentiment indicator
- A rough read on whether the discussion around a ticker skews bullish or bearish.
Questions traders ask
How are trending tickers ranked?
By mention count on r/WallStreetBets, with a 24-hour change showing whether mentions are rising or falling, plus a basic sentiment read on the discussion.
Is a spike in mentions a buy signal?
Not by itself. It's a crowd-attention signal. The setup that actually matters is a spike in mentions on a stock that also carries high short interest, since that combination is what precedes an actual squeeze.
What is the short squeeze watchlist looking for?
Tickers with elevated short float and rising retail attention at the same time, since low-float, heavily-shorted stocks are the ones most vulnerable to forced short covering.
What does "days to cover" mean and why does it matter?
It's the number of days it would take short sellers to buy back their entire position at average trading volume. A high days-to-cover with rising mentions means shorts have a real problem if the stock starts moving against them.
Where does this data come from?
The same mention-tracking source powers both panels, cross-referencing short interest data for the squeeze watchlist.
Trending tickers and squeeze watch, side by side
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