the meme stock craze is heating up again three of the most heavily shorted stocks bed bath  beyond  amc entertainment and gamestop all surged monday with no apparent catalyst yet bed bath  beyond both was the most mentioned stock on reddits wallstreetbets discussion board monday with gamestop coming in at no 3 according to quiver quantitative  all three stocks were lower at midday tuesday after running up monday the meme stock phenomenon took hold last year when a group of traders from wallstreetbets piled into gamestop to push up the price in whats known as a short squeeze a short squeeze occurs when a stock that investors had bet against instead moves higher forcing short sellers to buy back stock to cut their losses and pushing the stock higher still what follows are some other stocks that could be short squeeze candidates to find these names cnbc pro simply looked for the top 15 stocks with the largest short interest as a percentage of their freely traded shares among companies in the s  p 1500 index consisting of large mid and smallcap names dicks sporting goods took the top spot with 27 of its float shorted the stock is up almost 35 in the third quarter another consumer cyclical name urban outfitters  has 26 of its available shares shorted and has gained 18 so far this quarter meanwhile 23 of open sonic automotive shares are shorted the company which is up 23 this quarter reported an earnings and revenue miss in late july clothing company guess is also heavily bet against with almost 22 of its open shares shorted the stock has gained almost 19 in the third quarter the financials werent immune either b riley financial has 21 of its open shares on the market shorted the stock has risen 34 this quarter —cnbcs michael bloom contributed reporting