Nebius Group heads into its July 28 earnings print with the short book materially larger than a week ago, the borrow pool swinging between near-zero and barely open, and the stock down another 8% on Tuesday to close at $194.09.
The most significant change since the July 8 notes is the short position itself. Previous coverage flagged SI at 24% of free float — a level that held essentially static for weeks. That has now broken higher. Short interest has climbed to 28.2% of the float, up 17% in a single week. The jump is concentrated around July 9-10, when shorts added roughly 9 million shares in two days. Over the past month, the position has grown 38%. This is no longer a static entrenched book — it is an actively building one.
The borrow market tells a more complicated story. Availability has been oscillating violently. It dipped to 3.6% in late June, briefly reopened to 30% on July 10, then tightened again to just 4.7% on July 13 before widening slightly to 6.8% on Tuesday. The pattern — repeated spikes of near-zero availability followed by partial reopenings — reflects borrowed shares cycling back into the pool as the stock falls, then being re-lent almost immediately. Cost to borrow is low at under 1%, down nearly 19% on the week, which confirms there is no borrow squeeze premium despite the tightness. The ORTEX short score has edged up to 71.4, its highest reading of the past two weeks. The overall lending setup looks tight but not technically stressed — availability is meager, yet the cost of maintaining a short position remains cheap.
Options positioning has eased relative to the recent peak but stays above average. The put/call ratio is 1.03, slightly below its 20-day mean of 1.09 after running as high as 1.29 in early July. The slight pullback in PCR as the stock falls is notable — it suggests some of the defensive hedging put on during the prior decline has been absorbed rather than added to at current prices. The ORTEX utilization rank places the stock in the 8th percentile, consistent with a lending market that is close to fully used.
The Street is divided in a way that mirrors the fundamental tension. BofA lifted its target to $280 in early June while maintaining a Buy. Citigroup went further in mid-May, raising its target sharply to $287 after the prior quarter's earnings. Morgan Stanley remains at Equal-Weight with a $144 target — well below where the stock currently trades — reflecting the credible bear case around execution risk, Microsoft concentration, and the gap between contracted capacity and what Nebius can actually deliver. The consensus sits at one sell rating, with bulls anchored to the vertically integrated AI infrastructure story and the 440%-plus revenue growth rate, while bears point to negative ROA, an EPS momentum score ranking in the bottom 5th percentile, and a company whose valuation is almost impossible to benchmark cleanly. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed nearly 4 turns over the past 30 days, tracking the stock lower.
The insider trade picture from the last note has not changed. The CEO, CTO, and Chief Level Officer each sold material amounts at $235.45 on July 1 — a combined $23M — with the stock now trading almost 18% below that level. The 90-day net insider position remains a net sale of approximately $144M with no purchases to offset it. Founder and CEO Arkady Volozh holds 11.5% of the company; that stake has not changed materially, but the direction of recent flow is one-sided.
The last two earnings reactions are the clearest forward-looking context available. The May 13 print produced a 23% single-day gain. The April 24 print produced a 7.7% single-day loss. With short interest now 28% of the float, borrow availability near its floor, and no confirmed covering despite a 30% decline from the June peak, the July 28 print sets up as the defining event: the question is whether the short book holds, covers, or grows into an earnings move that the history suggests can be violent in either direction.
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