Avis Has Pulled a GameStop. Here’s How the Squeeze Numbers Actually Compare

1 week ago 6

Trey Thoelcke

Wed, April 29, 2026 astatine 7:25 AM CDT 4 min read

Quick Read

Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ: CAR) banal surged from astir $148 a stock connected March 27, 2026, to a 52-week precocious of $847.70 successful a substance of weeks, past crumpled backmost to $182.01 by April 28. That arc, highest euphoria followed by a 74.51% one-week drop, lands the rental-car relation successful uncommon company. Below are the astir celebrated parabolic abbreviated squeezes of the modern era, ranked by mechanical unit and marketplace scar tissue, with the existent numbers down each one.

The Comparison Table

Stock

Year

Pre-Squeeze

Peak

Approx. Days to Peak

Post-Peak Drawdown to Date

Primary Catalyst

Theater concatenation (see #4)

2021

$97.06

$370.05

~60

−98.4% (5Y)

Retail telephone buying, theatre rescue narrative

Volkswagen

2008

approximate

approximate

~2

approximate

Porsche interval disclosure

Video-game retailer (see #2)

2021

$4.31

peak approximate

~20

−43.0% (5Y)

Retail vs. hedge funds, gamma squeeze

Rental-car relation (see #1)

2026

$148.45

$847.70

~25

−74.5% (1W from highest window)

71% ownership concentration, hedge-fund standoff

4. AMC Entertainment, 2021

AMC Entertainment (NYSE: AMC) was the meme-stock encore. Split-adjusted, shares ran from $97.06 connected May 3, 2021, to $370.05 by July 30, 2021, a 281.3% surge driven by retail telephone buyers and CEO Adam Aron's unfastened courtship of shareholders. The concatenation monetized the rally with equity issuance, but the hangover lingered. AMC closed astatine $1.64 connected April 28, 2026, down 98.4% implicit 5 years. Q4 2025 inactive produced a $127.4 cardinal nett nonaccomplishment against $142.2 cardinal of quarterly involvement disbursal and astir $4.0 cardinal successful firm borrowings.

3. Volkswagen, 2008

The archetypal sovereign-style squeeze. Porsche disclosed power of astir of Volkswagen's interval successful precocious October 2008, and with sellers and shorts boxed out, VW concisely became the astir invaluable institution successful the world. Peak prices and drawdowns were utmost but are referenced present arsenic approximate per root verification standards. The acquisition endured: erstwhile the interval is tighter than the abbreviated interest, fundamentals cease to terms the banal and proviso mechanics instrumentality over. Volkswagen does not commercialized connected a U.S. exchange, but each modern squeeze, including the Avis episode, traces a logical enactment backmost to that two-day spike.

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