OIO Group has posted one of its strongest weeks in recent memory, gaining 21% to close at $2.46 — and the shorts have been quietly stepping back as the price climbs.
The most striking feature of this week's setup is the collapse in short positioning. Shares sold short have fallen roughly 70% over the past month, dropping from around 101,000 at mid-May to fewer than 30,000 today. That's a dramatic unwinding. The pace accelerated sharply around early June, when short interest halved in the space of a few trading sessions. The retreat looks orderly rather than forced: availability in the lending pool has eased to 266% — meaning there are more than two-and-a-half shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out — a sharp loosening from mid-May levels when availability briefly compressed to around 12%. That earlier tightness, which would have made covering expensive, has now fully unwound. Borrow costs remain elevated at 48%, down from a peak near 79% in mid-May but still historically high for a stock this size. The cost-to-borrow premium tells you the borrow market still views this as a contested name, even as the number of shorts declines.
What drove availability so tight in May deserves context. In the second week of May, availability fell to just 12% — essentially one share available for every eight already borrowed — and the utilization rate hit 94%, its highest level of the past year. That was the squeeze setup. Shorts who held through that period faced expensive borrow, rising stock prices, and a shrinking lending pool. The subsequent two-week collapse in short interest, from over 100,000 shares down to below 30,000, looks like the direct consequence of that pressure.
Analyst data is too stale to be useful here — the most recent insider data is from February 2022 and equally dated. With no forthcoming earnings event flagged and no recent Street activity to anchor a valuation view, the stock's near-term narrative is almost entirely a positioning story.
Among correlated peers, DSS gained about 13% on the week before giving back 6% on Tuesday, while CITR slipped nearly 5% over the same period. OIO's 21% weekly gain stands well clear of this peer group, suggesting the move is company-specific rather than sector-driven.
What to watch: whether short interest stabilises around current levels near 30,000 shares, or continues falling — and whether the still-elevated borrow cost of 48% starts compressing toward more normal territory as the short book thins further.
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