Lucid Group ends June in a state of near-mechanical contradiction: short sellers are actively adding to positions at record borrow costs, against a stock that just delivered a 29% weekly gain and has left the lending market with almost nothing left to give.
The borrow market data is now in territory that demands attention on its own terms. Cost to borrow closed June at 148% annualised — a doubling from the 78% level flagged in the prior note just four trading days ago, and a 13-fold increase from the roughly 11% that prevailed in late May. Availability finished the month at 0.04%, meaning one share remains available for every 2,300 already borrowed. That level has not improved meaningfully at any point during June; what changed this week is that the cost of staying short nearly doubled on top of an already extreme base. The ORTEX short score ticked up again to 86.4, its highest reading in the tracked history, now ranking in the bottom 1st percentile of the universe on both short score and days-to-cover. FINRA's most recent official settlement data confirms days-to-cover at 4.3 days.
What makes this setup genuinely unusual is that shorts are not retreating. Short interest reached 21.5% of the free float on June 30 — up 18% on the week and up 13% over the past month. Bears added roughly 1.7 million shares in the final session of the month alone. Paying 148% annualised to maintain a position against a stock that just ran 29% in a week is not an accident; it is a deliberate conviction bet. The question the data raises is not whether the squeeze is uncomfortable — it clearly is — but whether the bears have information or hedges that justify absorbing that cost. EV peers and gained 16.5% and 10.2% respectively on the week, suggesting the move in LCID is partly sector-driven, but the magnitude still stands apart.
Options positioning adds a layer of caution that partially validates the bearish conviction. The put/call ratio closed at 1.42, almost two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 1.31 — the most defensive options posture LCID has seen in recent weeks. That reading is not consistent with a market expecting the rally to simply continue unimpeded. It reflects hedging activity: some participants clearly want downside protection even as the stock prints new near-term highs. The contrast between rising short interest and elevated put demand versus a stock that keeps climbing higher is the central tension in this setup.
The Street offers little near-term comfort to bulls. Analyst data through mid-May shows a consensus "sell" rating with the most recent moves from Citigroup (lowering target to $14 while maintaining Buy) and TD Cowen (cutting target to $7 at Hold) heading in opposite directions. The lone outright bull case rests on Lucid's liquidity runway, the Uber robotaxi partnership, and a 61% year-on-year revenue growth rate that earned an 85th-percentile EPS surprise score. The bear case — suspended 2026 guidance, ongoing dilution risk, deeply negative returns on assets — remains the majority view. With the stock at $6.69 and the most bullish remaining analyst target at $14, there is theoretical upside on paper, but profitability remains a distant destination. The Public Investment Fund still anchors the register at 45% of shares, a structural backstop that limits the float and makes the short squeeze math more compressed.
Next up is the Q2 earnings print on August 5. The recent history makes for uncomfortable reading: the last three earnings events produced day-one moves of -10.6%, -3.2%, and -7.5%, with five-day follow-throughs mostly to the downside. Whether bears who have paid dearly through June will reduce exposure ahead of that date — or dig in further — is the dynamic that will define the setup going into August.
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