QQQ closed the week at $736.40, up 3.2%, erasing most of the losses from the prior week's 4.6% drop — and the positioning data that greeted the recovery is notably more ambiguous than the clean reset narrative that defined late June.
The most interesting development this week is a quiet rebuilding of short interest against a rising tape. Bears added roughly 2.3% to their position on Tuesday alone, nudging the short book back up to 67.2 million shares — 10.5% of the free float. That compares to 65.7 million the prior session and sits meaningfully above the recent trough after the June 24 unwind. The month-on-month picture is sharper still: short interest has risen 21% since late May, even after accounting for the mid-month trimming. This is not the picture of a bear community that has given up. The borrow market, however, tells a more relaxed story. Availability has loosened considerably — 238% now, meaning more than two shares are available to borrow for every share already lent out. That compares to 216% when last week's weekly report was published and to the 52-week tightest reading of just 25.9% that made this setup genuinely dangerous in mid-June. Cost to borrow ticked up 21% on the week to 0.63%, but remains firmly in low territory. Bears can still build positions at minimal cost, and the pool is not constrained.
Options positioning has shifted in a way that supports the calmer tone. The put/call ratio has drifted down to 1.41, now slightly below its 20-day average of 1.48 — about one standard deviation on the softer side of the mean. For context, the PCR has spent much of May and early June running north of 1.55, so the current reading marks a genuine reduction in hedging demand. The 52-week range runs from 1.09 to 1.86, placing QQQ in the lower half of its defensive-positioning band. Taken with the loosening borrow pool, options traders are no longer pricing the kind of tail-risk anxiety that characterised mid-June. The ORTEX short score has also come off its recent peak: it registered 64.3 on June 22 — the highest reading in this window — and has eased steadily to 58.1 by Tuesday, still elevated but no longer at a level that historically coincides with extreme bear conviction.
The analyst data for this ETF is too stale to be useful — the most recent price-target record dates to 2008 — so the Street angle is better read through the underlying index than through any formal consensus. What matters here is that the rally back toward $736 has come on a week when short interest was actually rising, not falling. That divergence — price up, shorts up — is worth holding in mind. It suggests bears are not capitulating into the bounce; they are using it.
The week ahead brings the July 4 US holiday mid-week, compressing volume and likely dampening volatility. The key question is whether the short book continues to build quietly through the second half of July, or whether a sustained move above the prior $740 resistance level prompts another round of forced covering — the same dynamic that drove the availability collapse seen in mid-June.
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