Why this matters: Four distinct data streams — short interest, borrow availability, cost to borrow, and options positioning — are now aligned bearishly on AST SpaceMobile simultaneously. The borrow market just set a new 52-week utilization extreme while the stock has shed 14% in a month. This is a different article from earlier this week's options and borrow dispatches: the new development is that utilization has now hit its annual peak.
Borrow availability: structurally tight, new 52-week utilization high. The borrow pool is as fully drained as it has been in a year. As of July 6, every share that can be lent out is effectively lent — a reading that marks the tightest point in the past 52 weeks. Availability sits at 25.8% of short interest. A month ago it was above 50%. The June 30 trough of 6.77% — the most extreme reading on record for this name — has partially unwound, but the structural repricing has not reversed. There are still roughly four shares on loan for every one available to borrow.
Short interest: record territory, month-long build. SI stands at 25.2% of the free float as of July 3. That is fractionally off the all-time ORTEX high of 26.5% set June 30. Over the past month, short positions have grown 39%. Shorts absorbed a 22% weekly rally in late June and kept adding. The position has not meaningfully retreated since.
Cost to borrow: up 47% in a month. CTB stands at 1.02%. It was 0.58% in late May. The rate has roughly doubled over six weeks, tracking the compression in available supply. The direction is unambiguous even if the absolute level remains moderate relative to true hard-to-borrow names.
Options: put demand rising. The put-call ratio reached 0.48 on July 6, up from 0.43 on July 2. The 20-day mean is 0.44. Earlier today's separately published convergence report noted the PCR hitting 0.52 on a 5.3% down day — protection buying into the decline. The combined signal from options and lending reinforces a defensive posture from multiple participant types simultaneously.
The ORTEX short score sits at 70.4, ranking in the 2nd percentile of all stocks — virtually every other name in the universe carries less short pressure. The utilization rank is in the 3rd percentile.
Institutional holders offer a mixed picture. BlackRock added 2.57 million shares as of June 30. State Street and UBS Asset Management also added. But Rakuten Investment Management cut its position by more than 15.5 million shares. CEO Abel Avellan sold $146.7 million of stock on June 22 at $58.68. The CFO and CTO also sold in recent weeks. Insider net selling over 90 days totals roughly $449 million.
The next earnings date is August 11. The last two prints produced same-day declines of 2.8% and 10.2%.
Deutsche Bank downgraded to Hold in late May, cutting its target from $117 to $106. UBS trimmed its target to $80. The stock closed July 6 at $80.64 — now trading essentially at the UBS neutral target, down 14% over the past month.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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