Sears Holdings Corp (NASDAQ:SHLD) shares were up by double digits on Friday amid what appears to be optimism over the possibility of more store closures prompting a short squeeze in SHLD stock.

Sears is coming off a fourth-quarter beat on the top and bottom lines, but with still-horrid numbers. Revenues in Q4 were down more than 16% to $6.1 billion, and the company lost $607 million.

Nonetheless, SHLD stock rebounded by 7%-plus Thursday, and now is up another 15% on Friday.

Business Insider’s Hayley Peterson writes that the company’s conference call points to the possibility of more store closings and sales. CFO Jason Hollar said:

“We have a valuable real estate portfolio, which at the end of the fourth quarter comprised 1,050 leases with significant optionality, as well as 380 owned stores, many in prominent locations. We will continue to assess opportunities to right-size our store footprint and inventory levels aligned to our ongoing transformation to an asset-light integrated retail model.”

Hayley surmises that “By highlighting the leases with optionality, Hollar seems to be suggesting the point that Sears can find ways to either partially or entirely get out of those leases before they expire. Meanwhile, the owned stores can be sold for cash.”

SHLD has knocked its store count down by nearly 600 stores over the past five years as it tries to repay debt amid a failure to turn around the core business.

The short-term optimism in SHLD stock appears to be scaring what is an overwhelmingly bearish crowd. Roughly 84% of Sears’ float was sold short as of the most recent data, good for a short ratio of 8.52 — basically, it would take more than eight days’ worth of selling at average volumes to clear out all the bearish bets on SHLD.

As of this writing, Robert Martin did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.