TENX: Options Traders Turn Bullish as Short Sellers Ease Off

Tenax Therapeutics enters the back half of June with a sharp divergence between its price action and its positioning — the stock is up 20% on the week, yet both short sellers and options traders are pointing in the same direction: less bearish than they were a month ago.

The options market tells the clearest story. Call positioning has overwhelmed puts to an unusual degree, with the put/call ratio dropping to 0.13 — nearly two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.21. That's the most call-skewed reading in at least a month, and the trend is consistent: the ratio has drifted steadily lower since early May, when it was running above 0.45. Options traders have been moving from defensive to directional, and the current week's price surge appears to have amplified that shift.

The lending market is not adding pressure from the other side. Availability is extremely loose — over 1,800% of short interest is available to borrow, meaning there are roughly 18 shares sitting idle in the lending pool for every one that's been lent out. Cost to borrow has collapsed, falling from a peak near 2% in early June to just 0.36% now, a 38% drop over the week alone. Short interest itself is 12.4% of the free float — elevated in absolute terms — but the direction is mildly easing, down about 2% over the week even as it remains 16% above its level a month ago. The short score of 34 ranks in the 66th percentile for the sector, suggesting the market's short positioning is meaningful but not extreme. Borrow conditions look loose rather than stressed.

Institutional ownership adds context to the recent buying interest. The holder list leans heavily toward specialist healthcare and biotech funds. Janus Henderson leads with roughly 3.1% of shares, but the more notable entries are the new or significantly expanded positions: VR Management, Perceptive Advisors, Stonepine Capital, and Logos Global all appear to have built or dramatically increased holdings in Q1 2026, based on last-reported change figures. Millennium Management also added materially, with its last reported date as recently as May. That's a cluster of specialist investors building exposure — a pattern that often precedes increased price sensitivity around catalysts.

The next scheduled catalyst is an earnings print on August 13. The company's recent earnings history has been volatile: the two most recent events (May 15 and March 25) produced a one-day move of -2.4% and +13.2% respectively, with the five-day follow-through reaching +21% after the March release. The March 10 event was even more extreme, generating a one-day gain of +32.7% and a five-day move of nearly +38%. A pre-loss biotech with no analyst consensus data in the snapshot means valuation anchors are absent — the PE and EV/EBITDA figures are negative and largely uninformative, and no current price targets are available to assess Street sentiment with confidence.

The setup heading into August is one where call-side positioning is near its most aggressive in months, short sellers are gently retreating despite having built positions over May, and a cluster of specialist healthcare funds has been actively adding. The August 13 print — and any clinical or regulatory newsflow preceding it — will test whether that alignment holds.