Shares of Carvana Co. CVNA, +24.43% soared 24.7%, enough to pace the New York Stock Exchange’s gainers, even though the online used-car retailer hasn’t released any news.
Trading volume swelled to 33.3 million shares, already well above the full-day average over the past 30 days of 20.5 million shares. The stock has now run up 48.1% since it closed at a record low of $3.72 on Dec. 27, but was still down 69.9% over the past three months while the S&P 500 SPX, +1.28% has gained 10.1%. The company hasn’t issued a press released or a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission yet this year. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On a positive note, Truist analyst Naved Khan sent a note to clients Wednesday saying data sources indicated wholesale used vehicle prices showed signs of normalization through the last couple months of the fourth quarter, and the average daily sales conversion rate improved in December from November. “We view the slower pace of wholesale price declines as an incremental positive for wholesale transaction volumes,” Khan wrote, including those operated by Carvana. Among others expected to benefit, shares of CarGurus Inc. rose 4.8% in afternoon trading and ACV Auctions Inc. climbed 5.1%. Separately, short interest, or bearish bets, in Carvana’s stock as a percent of float, or freely tradeable by the public, was 58.01% as of the latest exchange data, compared with 9.32% for CarGurus and 6.41% for ACV Auctions.