Lucid Group enters the week of July 15 with a stock down 23% in five days, a borrow market that just came off its most extreme levels in years, and a short score still deep in bearish territory — a combination that frames an unusually charged setup heading into August earnings.
The borrow story is the most dramatic pivot in the data. Cost to borrow peaked at 148% annually on June 30 — one of the most expensive borrow levels seen in recent memory for a large-float EV name. It has since collapsed to 24%, a drop of more than 80 percentage points in two weeks. That easing reflects a modest unwind in short positioning: SI % of free float has pulled back to 19.6% from a recent peak near 21%, though it remains materially elevated. Availability, which had been essentially zero for most of June and early July — hitting 0.04% on June 30, meaning the entire lending pool was fully lent out — has opened up slightly to 6.4%. That is still extremely tight. With only one share available for every fifteen already borrowed, the borrow market remains stressed even after the most severe pressure has passed.
Options positioning tells a structurally bearish story, though not an unusual one by recent standards. The put/call ratio is running at 1.31, almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 1.33 and well below the 52-week high of 2.42. The z-score of -0.33 means options traders are not adding fresh defensive hedges this week — they were already hedged. The elevated baseline PCR simply reflects the persistently cautious stance the market has held on LCID for months.
The Street is overwhelmingly on the sidelines or actively negative. RBC Capital lowered its price target to $7 from $8 on July 13, maintaining a Sector Perform rating — a signal that even the neutral camp is trimming expectations. Earlier actions from TD Cowen and Benchmark were more decisive: Cowen cut its target to $7 from $10 in May, while Benchmark downgraded to Hold outright. Citigroup remains the lone credible bull, with a Buy rating and a $14 target set in March, though that target has already been reduced once. The consensus mean price target is $8.30 — implying roughly 80% upside from $4.62 — but the direction of analyst revisions has been uniformly downward. The bear case centres on suspended 2026 guidance, a leadership transition, Q1 delivery misses, and execution risk on the Gravity SUV ramp. The bull case leans heavily on the Uber partnership and long-duration EV platform value — thin cover for a stock that has lost more than half its value from where Citigroup initiated coverage in March. The ORTEX short score is 81, placing LCID in the most-shorted 1st percentile of its universe on both short score rank and availability rank.
The ownership structure adds another layer of complexity. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund holds 45% of shares, an anchor position that constrains the true free float and amplifies short interest as a percentage of what's actually tradeable. Uber Technologies reported a 24 million share addition in its last filing — a strategic rather than speculative position tied to the partnership — but that stake sits above the short-selling fray. On the insider side, the Acting CEO and both CFOs sold small lots at $5.68 on June 5, well above the current price of $4.62. The trades were insignificant in dollar terms but directionally consistent with the broader decline.
Earnings history adds one more cautionary note. The last four results events produced an average next-day decline of roughly 7%, with the most recent print — in early June — bringing a 10.6% single-day drop and a further 9.6% loss over the following week. The next earnings event is scheduled for August 4. What to watch between now and then: whether the borrow market tightens back toward zero availability as the stock continues to fall, and whether the cost to borrow, now at 24% and still above its pre-June baseline, begins to reflect renewed demand for short exposure at these lower price levels.
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