The latest entrant to this month’s meme stock craze appears to be Kohl’s (KSS).
Shares of the beleaguered retailer were up more than 30% in mid-morning trade on Tuesday, with the stock at one point getting halted for trade by the New York Stock Exchange for volatility. In premarket trading, Kohl’s stock rose more than 100% at its highs.
In a story similar to new meme stock darling Opendoor (OPEN), retail traders piled into the middle-income retailer on Tuesday, pushing a stock that opened around $10.70 in premarket trading to as high as $21.39 before the exchange stepped in.
After rising more than 40% on Monday — and more than doubling at its highs of the day — Opendoor stock was down about 1% early Tuesday.
Like Opendoor, Kohl’s has had a run of underperformance and seen its stock price consistently fall from a post-pandemic recovery high of around $60 to a 52-week low of $6.04 in April of this year.
The latest data shows Kohl’s short float sits at 49%, meaning traders have placed considerable bets the company will continue to struggle and its share price will continue to falter. Kohl’s stock has garnered significant interest from retail traders, sparking several threads Tuesday morning on the subreddit wallstreetbets, which has at times seen retail traders target heavily shorted stocks to “squeeze” investors out of these positions.
Opendoor is also heavily shorted, though its short float stood closer to 21%, according to the latest data available Tuesday.
After reporting a 6.7% same-store sales decline for its fiscal fourth quarter in March, Kohl’s stock fell 24%. Net sales in the quarter totaled $5.2 billion.
Then-CEO Ashley Buchanan announced plans on that earnings call to initiate a broad turnaround that included thinning out its offerings to refocus on core areas like Sephora beauty products and value items for its core customer.
But Buchanan, appointed to the top job in January, was removed in May for an ethical breach centered on conflict of interest with a vendor contract, leaving board chair Michael Bender as interim CEO. In late May, the company reported same-store sales fell 4.1% in the first quarter of 2025, with net sales reaching $3 billion.
Kohl’s expects same-store sales will drop 4%-6% in its fiscal 2025.
Jake Conley is a breaking news reporter covering US equities for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on X at @byjakeconley or email him at jake.conley@yahooinc.com.
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