Avis Budget Group looks like a great short on the way down because its roughly 500% rise over the past month appears to be just a short squeeze, with no fundamental reason or even buyout speculation behind it. x.com 

Avis Budget's 509% one-month surge is an institutional short squeeze that will most likely end as holders take record profits. SRS and Pentwater locked up over 100% of the supply, 54% of the stock was sold short, and Pentwater's large call block forced delivery of shares that didn't exist. The squeeze could technically go on only if institutions coordinated, which is illegal. x.com 

Avis Budget is set up for the short squeeze of the year and can 10x from here. Two hedge funds own a combined 108%, holding 71% of the float plus more through derivatives, while 54% of the float is sold short. It will eventually fall 90%, but likely rises 2-5x first; trading it is risky, with put premiums ultra high. x.com  x.com 

Avis Budget Group's shorts are not wrong, and the concentrated hedge-fund longs look hard to monetize. Avis hasn't had a year of positive free cash flow in a decade, carries about $3.5B of net debt excluding cars, and faces obsolescence if self-driving cars cut the need to own or rent, while better-capitalized Uber is chasing the intermediary role. SRS effectively controls the board, so needed share issuance is unlikely, and selling its stake would collapse the price. x.com 

Avis Budget could drop 60-70% or more if the broader market corrects by around 20%, possibly ending the way Sandisk did. Until then, it might keep burning short sellers. x.com 

Avis Budget is undervalued even at a $15 billion market cap, when CoreWeave carries a $62 billion market cap on half the revenue. x.com 

Avis Budget's market cap looks absurd: on rough private valuations it is now worth more than Enterprise, U-Haul, Hertz, Turo, Budget, Alamo, Thrifty and Ace combined, basically the entire rent-a-car industry. Shorting at the $490s is late after the $700-$800s, so only a small short, but the stock is probably going to $400. x.com  x.com 

Avis Budget is overvalued: a walk through the rental car area at Washington Dulles airport showed nothing in car rentals that justifies $400 a share, even with AI. x.com 

Avis Budget's sixfold rise in two weeks is madness for a company whose financials and KPIs are stagnant. x.com 

Verra Mobility looks like another AI-disrupted company after Avis Budget ended its contract and the stock fell about 70% in a day. An early machine-learning player in tolling and red-light enforcement, it resembles UiPath: a good company that is not holding up against newer, superior AI-first competitors. A $500 million market cap against a $1 billion revenue guide looks cheap until you count its $1 billion of debt. x.com  x.com