No one knows if it is true that “the shorts have not yet covered.” It is doing a disservice to any credulous investors to make claims like that, when it is literally impossible for us to know. The exchanges certainly have the capability of being able to release the actual short position at the end of each trading day, but since that is helpful to small traders and takes away the edge of the hedge funds and market makers, instead they are permitted to release that data only every 2 weeks. Of course that means it’s outdated by the time WE see it.

The huge rise in the stock price and the volume certainly could indicate that the shorts ARE trying to cover. NO individual investor knows whether this is short covering or new buying.

I saw a 200k share trade today, and the price went down shortly thereafter — pun intended, because in the past that kind of action has indicated someone shorting. Then, almost immediately there were at least 10 15k trades at lower levels, and some other large trades, which easily could have indicated that this was a new short position being initiated and then quickly covered. Some of the day traders literally trade for a penny or less, with huge numbers of shares. I knew a guy whose goal was 5 trades a day with $100 profit each.

But, again: we simply have NO idea whether this is short covering or new buying.