RUM is heading into the post-earnings period with a meaningful shift in its lending dynamics — borrow costs have halved since May, shorts have trimmed modestly, but the underlying bearish structure remains one of the most extreme in the market.
The most notable change since the June 11 earnings print is how the borrow market has evolved. Going into that release, availability had dropped to 2% — effectively every share in the lending pool was already lent out. Today the picture is slightly less extreme: availability has recovered to around 5%, though it still swings violently day-to-day. On June 16 it briefly touched 0.43% again — close to fully exhausted. Cost to borrow has fallen steadily from roughly 35% in early May to just under 11% now, a 43% decline over the month. That normalization reflects less frantic demand for new borrows, not a short base in retreat. Short interest itself tells a more nuanced story: the 23.1 million shares short represent 10.7% of free float, down slightly on the day but up nearly 3% on the week and up 6.5% over the past month. The direction of travel is still higher, just less frenetically so than before earnings.
What makes the positioning picture unusual is the divergence between the borrow market and options sentiment. Options traders are running an overwhelmingly bullish tilt — the put/call ratio of 0.175 is near the lowest reading of the past year, and while it ticked slightly above its 20-day average this week, it remains deeply call-skewed. That stands in sharp contrast to a short score of 83 out of 100, which ranks in the absolute bottom tier of the universe for bearish pressure. These two signals are pointing in opposite directions: options buyers are leaning long, while the short base — still heavily entrenched at nearly 11% of float — signals persistent institutional skepticism about the platform's fundamentals.
The Street is largely on the sidelines, and the available analyst data is stale. The most recent action of note was Wedbush cutting its target to $10 in March 2025, maintaining a Neutral rating. With the stock now at $7.29, that target implies modest upside, but the data is over a year old and should not be treated as current guidance. The ORTEX short score of 83 and a utilization rank of 1 — the very tightest end of the universe — underline that factor-based signals remain firmly bearish. Quality remains a structural weak point, with a negative ROA and negative free cash flow. The only meaningful recent institutional development worth noting is Ryan Milnes's large position — 13.6% of shares — having been largely accumulated earlier this year, with minimal change recently.
Insider activity adds a cautionary note. On June 12, five directors sold shares simultaneously at $7.54 — a coordinated cluster that, while individually small in dollar terms (the largest was $152,000), represents a clear directional signal from the board. CEO Christopher Pavlovski also sold shares in April at $4.98. Since the stock has since risen to $7.29, those April sales look premature, but the June board cluster at current levels is harder to dismiss as purely mechanical.
The next earnings date is August 13. Between now and then, the relevant watch points are whether the borrow market tightens back toward zero availability on any rally — which would flag renewed short-covering pressure — and whether short interest continues its one-month creep higher despite a stock that is up 4% on the week and 1% over the past month. The tension between a call-heavy options book and a stubbornly elevated short base is the defining feature of RUM's current setup.
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