Is Pandora Ripe for a Short Squeeze?

Pandora

is set to report earnings after the bell on Thursday. If the company beats expectations, shares could surge. Over one-fifth of Pandora's shares have been sold short. If Pandora's earnings are strongly better than anticipated, these short sellers might run to cover their bets. A similar phenomenon might have been seen in Netflix

at the end of January. Analysts expect the Internet radio giant to post a loss per share of $0.05 on revenue of $122.8 million. Shares of Pandora jumped higher on Thursday, ahead of earnings, up almost 3%. The source of the move was likely a report from The New York Times. The paper said that Apple

, which has been widely rumored to be working on a service intended to rival Pandora, had to delay the start of its service because talks with record labels had stalled. Benzinga spoke to Albert Fried's Rich Tullo last week. Tullo covers Pandora, and although he believes Pandora is a “great” company, he doesn't think it will necessarily offer attractive returns to equity investors. Pandora traded near $12 Thursday ahead of earnings.