The lending pool for INFY has effectively run dry. Availability has crashed to just 0.11% — meaning fewer than one share remains available to borrow for every thousand already out on loan. That's the tightest reading in 52 weeks.
The squeeze didn't come from nowhere. Short interest rose 18.7% in a single week to 198.6 million shares. Over the past month it's up 27%. Demand for borrows has simply outpaced supply, and now there's almost nothing left.
Cost to borrow stands at 12.25%. That's high, but it tells a partial story. Six weeks ago it was above 48%. Shorts have been paying heavily to hold positions — and the pool they're drawing from has been near zero on multiple occasions since early June.
Availability has oscillated between near-zero and roughly 5% throughout July. On July 6, 7, 8, and 10 it was below 0.5%. These aren't spikes. This is a market in structural shortage.
The ORTEX short score sits at 73.3. The utilization rank factor is at the 89th percentile. Every metric in the lending data points the same direction.
The lending pressure isn't developing in isolation. Analysts are pulling targets down hard.
TD Cowen cut its price target to $10 on July 9 — from $13. Susquehanna lowered its target to $12 on July 10. JP Morgan trimmed to $12.70 from $16.80 in late June. Wells Fargo initiated at Equal-Weight with an $11 target.
The consensus mean target is $13.44. The stock closed at $10.94 on July 10. That's a modest implied upside — but the direction of analyst revisions is consistently negative. Every recent action has been a cut or a hold initiation.
Earnings are due July 23. The last print, in April, saw the stock fall 4.6% on the day and 7.6% over the following five days. Short sellers appear to be positioning ahead of that event.
The put/call ratio is 3.52. The 20-day mean is 3.24. At 3.52, puts heavily dominate. The PCR has drifted up steadily from below 3.0 in mid-June. The z-score of 1.18 is elevated but not yet extreme — however the trend is clear and consistent.
The 52-week PCR high is 4.14. There's room for further skew toward puts if the bearish narrative intensifies into earnings.
What to watch: The July 23 earnings print is the key event. Availability near zero means shorts cannot easily add to positions — but covering would also move the stock meaningfully given how thin the lending pool has become.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open INFY on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
