FRMI is caught in a rare split: short sellers are pressing harder into a falling stock while options traders refuse to buy the bearish narrative.
The short side continues to build at an unusually aggressive pace. SI % of free float reached 5.9% on July 9, up from around 3.4% a month ago — a 72% increase over 30 days that shows no sign of slowing. Shares short rose another 7% in a single session on July 9 alone. What remains striking is that none of this reflects a constrained lending market. Availability has actually loosened dramatically this week, jumping to 538% from roughly 124% in mid-June. There are now more than five shares available to borrow for every one lent out. Cost to borrow, at 0.51%, is up 34% over the week but remains firmly in the low-cost category. Bears are adding with conviction into a wide-open pool — this is directional positioning, not a borrow-driven squeeze.
Options traders are telling a different story. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.29, well below its 20-day average of 0.34 and near the lowest reading of the past year (52-week low: 0.27). That means call volume is running more than three times put volume — a notably bullish skew for a stock that fell 10% on Thursday and 18% on the week. The divergence between the options posture and short interest accumulation is the clearest tension on the tape right now.
Analysts have been cutting hard, though the picture is mixed on direction. Stifel's Stephen Gengaro maintained a Buy rating in late June but slashed his target from $29 to $17 — a significant de-rating even while keeping the conviction label. Evercore downgraded to In-Line in May, cutting from $20 to $11. Most other coverage maintains positive ratings, with a consensus mean target of $19 against a current price of $6.59. That gap looks optically large, but reflects targets set before a stock that has more than halved from earlier levels. The bull case rests on Fermi's AI power campus thesis and management's insistence that operational timelines remain intact. Bears point to the cancellation of a major construction advance, onboarding delays, supply chain risk, and execution costs that could weigh heavily on a company with negative earnings (PE is deeply negative and EV/EBITDA has compressed 6.2 points over 30 days to 13.8x).
Ownership adds another layer of complexity. Founder James Perry holds 10.7% and actually added 7.1 million shares as of June 30 — the same day he sold 863,637 shares worth $6.3 million. That combination of buying and selling by the same insider in the same reporting period is worth noting. The CFO and COO both sold in April near $4.58, around the same time UBS dramatically cut its target from $30 to $8. Despite the selling, net insider activity over 90 days is positive in share terms, with net value of roughly $18.9 million — though that figure is heavily influenced by award grants rather than open-market purchases.
Earnings history gives bears some ammunition. The most recent print on June 30 produced a 9.8% one-day decline and a 21.9% five-day decline. The prior print in May saw an 8.5% one-day gain that faded to just 1% over five days. The next event is scheduled for August 14 — five weeks out — making the current positioning battle a preview of what to expect heading into that release.
The setup heading into next week pits accelerating short conviction against an options market that is leaning hard the other way, with August 14 as the next hard test for both sides.
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