Betting Against Avis/Budget

People noticed how bad the rental car company Avis had been doing. So, they piled on, shorting the stock. A large firm decided to just buy Avis shares. They bought about half the outstanding shares of stock. Another big firm joined in. They bought the rest of the shares. In theory, there should be no shares for the shorts to buy to close out their positions.

This was a textbook short squeeze. The stock was starting somewhere around $100. The squeeze caused the price to run up to $800. I got in and out a few times of the stock before I really understood what was happening. Then the stock dropped to around $200. I figured it was still way too high. Earning are going to be announced this Wednesday.

I transferred most of my cash from my checking account to my brokerage account. I tried to buy puts, essentially betting against the price of Avis. The brokerage denied my option trades. They want me to wait until the transfer of funds clears. This is giving me deja vu, back to when my brokerages outright prohibited shorting GameStop stock.

I had a few grand across a couple trading account. I used those meager funds to bet against Avis stock. Unfortunately, even if I am right, my profits are capped due to lack of funds to work with.