Short-sellers made billions from US tech selloff, GameStop inflicts losses: Ortex

Investors are estimated to have made billions of dollars from their bearish bets on Tesla and big tech stocks in the recent knee-jerk selloff triggered by a jump in U.S. Treasury yields, data from financial analytics firm Ortex showed on Tuesday.

Tesla was short-sellers' biggest win, giving them estimated profits of $4.2 billion so far in 2021, followed by more than $1 billion gains each on Zoom Video and Apple, according to Ortex.

They were however burnt by betting against videogame maker Gamestop. The company, which was at the heart of the so-called "stonks" retail trading mania, has jumped another 400% in the past two weeks as amateur investors have jumped back in.

GameStop's e-commerce strategy plans were seen driving this week's renewed gains in January's "meme" stocks, alongside speculation that small investors will use their upcoming stimulus checks to trade.

In other major bets, investors made about $1 billion from shorting QQQ, an ETF that tracks the performance of the Nasdaq 100. The tech-heavy benchmark hit correction territory on Monday, slipping more than 10% from record highs.