QRTEB - Qurate Retail Liberty TripAdvisor hit volatility pauses on unusual trading

A series of halts has hit trading in stocks affiliated with John Malone's Liberty Global ( LBTYA ) amid unusual moves in a number of the usually low-volume names.

Series B shares in Qurate Retail ( NASDAQ: QRTEB ) - the owner of home-shopping outlets QVC and HSN as well as Zulily - has seen four volatility trading pauses so far Tuesday morning. The stock jumped 327% Monday on no apparent news, from $4.27 to $18.23, and is seeing choppy trading Tuesday. Qurate Retail was formerly Liberty Interactive before changing its name in 2018. Its Series A shares ( QRTEA ) are up 3% .

Liberty TripAdvisor Series B ( NASDAQ: LTRPB ) has now seen five volatility pauses so far Tuesday. It's up 71.9% on volume that's already quintupled usual average. It jumped 196% Monday.

Theories of some short squeezing are being floated in the lower-volume share classes. Short interest in Qurate A ( QRTEA ) at last report was 7.8%, but there was 29.5% short interest in the Series B ( QRTEB ).

In Liberty TripAdvisor Series A ( LTRPA ), short interest was 1.69% of the float, while in Series B ( LTRPB ) it's 3.33%.

Other Liberty stocks are trading more calmly Tuesday. Liberty Global ( LBTYA ) is near flat, while LBTYB and LBTYK are each down 0.2% . Formula One ( FWONA ) is -0.7% , while FWONK is -0.6% . And Liberty Sirius SM ( LSXMA ) is +0.5% while LSXMB is -1.9% .

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