CRWV has staged a sharp reversal this week, climbing 19% to $117.03 — a striking turnaround from the earnings-driven slide that dominated the prior note — yet short sellers have used the rally to add rather than retreat.
The positioning story is the most compelling tension right now. Short interest has risen 8% over the past week to 16% of the free float, now sitting at roughly 61.8 million shares. That increase runs directly against a stock that just put in one of its best weekly performances. The borrow market remains loose — availability is at 463%, meaning there are roughly four-and-a-half shares available to borrow for every one already shorted — so new shorts face no friction entering the trade. Cost to borrow is low at 0.44%, down from around 0.58% in late May, confirming this is not a stressed lending environment. Options traders are not adding much conviction either way: the put/call ratio of 0.80 is just barely above its 20-day average of 0.78, a z-score of 0.71, which reads as neutral rather than directionally charged. The ORTEX short score has edged up to 56.3 from 51.8 two weeks ago — a steady drift in a more cautious direction, not a dramatic swing.
The Street is broadly constructive but divided on valuation. The analyst consensus is Buy, with a mean price target near $140 — about 20% above the current price. BNP Paribas initiated coverage earlier this month with an Outperform rating and a $192 target, the most bullish call on the board. Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated Overweight at $167 on June 16. The sceptics are anchored by JP Morgan's Neutral at $105 and Barclays' Equal-Weight at $120 — both below the current price, which at $117 now sits above the JP Morgan target. DA Davidson downgraded to Neutral in May, cutting its target from $175 to $100, citing concerns that likely remain live. The bull case centres on the $99.4 billion revenue backlog and $40 billion in new Q1 customer commitments. The bear case points to capacity constraints, customer concentration, and a backlog trading multiple that sits at a discount to peers. The price-to-book multiple has expanded sharply — up roughly 4.3 points over the past 30 days to 17x — reflecting the rally rather than any fundamental re-rating. EPS momentum scores remain weak, ranking in the 9th and 16th percentiles on 30- and 90-day windows, and the analyst recommendation divergence factor sits at the 94th percentile, which captures how wide the gap between bulls and bears really is.
Insider activity has not stopped. The previous note flagged aggressive selling ahead of the June 8 earnings print, and that activity has continued into the rally. CFO Nitin Agrawal sold approximately 63,900 shares on June 11 at around $93, raising close to $6 million. Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Brian Venturo sold a further 26,876 shares on June 10 at prices between $96 and $100. These are relatively small in the context of the positions held, and both trades followed RSU award grants, which is a common pattern. But the direction of travel — insiders reducing into strength — is consistent with what was happening before the post-earnings decline. CEO Michael Intrator still holds 56.7 million shares, and Goldman Sachs and Vanguard entered Q2 with fresh long positions built at end of Q1, providing some institutional counterweight.
The next scheduled earnings event is August 6. The last two prints produced a 1.9% next-day decline in June and a 17.3% next-day decline in May — a wide range that underlines how sensitive this stock is to execution delivery against its enormous backlog. With short interest rebuilding into a rally, availability still loose, and insider selling continuing at a measured pace, the tension heading into August is whether the recovery holds or whether the fresh shorts prove well-timed.
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