XPeng enters the back half of July with a quietly interesting split: the lending market has loosened noticeably over the past week, yet the underlying short position remains large and the stock has given back nearly 8% over the past month despite a modest 3.2% pop on Tuesday.
The most striking move in the borrow market is how sharply availability has swung. Availability has more than tripled in a week — from roughly 10% to 31.5% — a meaningful loosening after a period when the lending pool was almost completely exhausted. For context, availability touched a 52-week low of just 0.27% earlier this year, meaning at the tightest point there was virtually nothing left to borrow. The current reading is still tight by normal standards, but the direction has clearly shifted. Cost to borrow has followed suit, dropping nearly 46% on the week to under 1% — its lowest level since early June. That combination of rising availability and falling borrow costs suggests some short sellers have returned stock to lenders rather than pressing the position. Short shares outstanding have edged down about 3% on the week to roughly 53 million, though they remain 8% higher than a month ago. The ORTEX short score holds at 70, near the top of its recent range, reflecting the cumulative weight of a heavy short base even as the near-term borrow squeeze eases. Options, meanwhile, paint a bullish picture: the put/call ratio has dropped to 0.35, well below its 20-day average of 0.39 and close to its 52-week low of 0.33, suggesting call activity has been running hot relative to defensive hedging.
The Street picture is mixed, with the most recent analyst moves doing more to complicate the bull case than support it. Macquarie upgraded XPEV to Outperform in late May, keeping its $19 target — but that same firm had downgraded the stock to Neutral in March and cut the target from $24, so the round-trip leaves conviction looking thin. Barclays maintained its Underweight rating in March, trimming the target to $16. The broader consensus has not moved materially since then, and most active targets cluster in the $16–$25 range — all well above the current $13.36 price. Factor scores add nuance: EPS surprise ranks in the 97th percentile and 30-day EPS momentum is at the 99th — a signal that near-term estimate revisions have been running strongly positive. But 90-day EPS momentum sits at just the 2nd percentile, suggesting that the recent burst of optimism follows a longer period of cuts. The analyst recommendation differential score ranks in just the 1st percentile, meaning the consensus skew relative to history is about as bearish as it gets. Valuation is not cheap for a company still generating losses: the P/E multiple is running at roughly 100x and EV/EBITDA at 45x, both elevated for an EV maker yet to achieve consistent profitability.
Institutional flow offers one positive data point. Goldman Sachs added nearly 3.8 million shares as of early June, lifting its position to around 26.5 million shares. BlackRock added just over 1 million shares in the same period. Neither move is transformative, but the direction from two large institutions is incrementally constructive against a backdrop where Morgan Stanley — a 5% owner — was a net seller in late 2024 at prices slightly below current levels.
Among peers, NIO gained 2.7% on the week and LI added 3.5%, meaning XPEV's 1.4% weekly gain lagged the broader Chinese EV cohort. RIVN outpaced the group with a 6.1% weekly move. The relative underperformance is modest but consistent with the pattern from the stock-score note from June, which flagged XPEV trailing peers on momentum across nearly all timeframes.
The next formal test is the Q3 earnings event flagged for August 27 — the last comparable print, in May, produced a negligible day-one move but a 2.2% gain over the following week. Whether the recent borrow-market loosening is a structural shift or a temporary pause ahead of renewed short accumulation is the question that will define how the stock trades into that release.
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