Three distinct signals are converging on MFG this week. Short interest has jumped, the borrow market has hit acute tightness, and options traders are adding puts into a 23% one-month rally.
The headline story is the lending pool. Availability dropped to just 2.4% on June 15 — the 52-week low. That means fewer than one share was available for every 40 already on loan.
Since then, availability has recovered slightly to 22.9%. That is still deep in "very tight" territory. The stock hit maximum borrow exhaustion four times in the past ten days: June 5, 9, 10, and 12 all saw availability collapse below 4%.
The pattern is striking. In early May, availability sat above 180%. By mid-June it had fallen to near zero. That is a near-total drawdown of the borrowable pool in under six weeks.
Cost to borrow has risen with it. The rate reached 1.38% on June 17, up 17% over the past month. That remains relatively low in absolute terms — but the direction is consistent with a market where supply is genuinely scarce.
Short interest has risen to approximately 6.45 million shares as of June 17. That is up roughly 35–40% from levels seen at the start of June, when shares stood near 4.8 million.
The float percentage is unavailable in this snapshot. Short interest is therefore assessed purely in share-count terms. The rise is material regardless: a 40% increase in six weeks while the stock climbed 23% means short sellers are adding conviction into strength, not capitulating.
The put-call ratio hit 0.7769 on June 18. That is 2.52 standard deviations above its 20-day mean. It is not an extreme reading in isolation — the 52-week high for MFG's PCR is 1.28 — but the Z-score move is the highest in the current window.
The combination is notable. A stock up 23% in a month with rising put demand suggests some participants are buying protection rather than chasing. That is distinct from outright bearish conviction.
Among the top holders, Nomura Asset Management added nearly 9.8 million shares in its most recent filing. Capital Research added 4.6 million. BlackRock added 242,000. None of the major holders show significant trimming. That reduces the probability that the recent short build reflects insider-driven information flow.
Earnings are scheduled for July 30.
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