It's been a positive day for ASX shares on Thursday. At the close of trading, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) was up a healthy 0.44% to more than 6,650 points. But speaking of points, it's been an even better day for the Pointsbet Holdings Ltd (ASX: PBH) share price.
Pointsbet shares closed 7.06% higher at $2.73 a share.
So what sparked such an enthusiastic reaction from investors over the sports betting company's shares today?
Why did Pointsbet shares rocket 7% today?
Well, it's not clear, unfortunately. There has been no major news or announcements out of the company for a while now.
However, we saw a clear trend on the ASX boards today that could explain the Pointsbet share price's impressive performance. ASX tech shares were one of the best performing sectors on the ASX 200 today. The S&P/ASX All Technology Index (ASX: XTX) put on an eye-catching 2.15% today, with many ASX tech shares doing even better than that.
EML Payments Ltd (ASX: EML) shares rose 12.3% today, while Novonix Ltd (ASX: NVX) was up 3.4%, the Computershare Limited (ASX: CPU) share price lifted 2.7% and WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) shares climbed 2.47%.
Pointsbet is also one of the ASX's most shorted shares at the moment. This means the company's share price is vulnerable to a short squeeze, which could also help explain its healthy outperformance today.
Even so, today's move isn't nearly enough to make up for what has been an especially tough year for the Pointsbet share price. The company remains down more than 60% year to date in 2022, as well as down more than 75% over the past 12 months.
At the current Pintsbet share price, this ASX tech share has a market capitalisation of $830 million.
