Bears Pile In: Rare Earth, EV, and Social Media Stocks Hot

Short sellers are busy in July. The biggest week-over-week SI jump among US large caps belongs to SNAP. Short interest rose 23.4% in one week to 10% of free float. Analyst downgrades and an ongoing addiction lawsuit settlement are fuelling the bearish bets.

Critical minerals stocks are also in the crosshairs. CRML hit 100% utilization. Availability of shares to borrow collapsed 75% this week to just 3.8% of SI. Cost to borrow stands at 21%. That squeeze setup is hard to ignore. MP Materials sits at 19.7% SI with utilization near 92% — a Trump executive order banning foreign minerals waivers is driving attention on both names.

EV perennial bear target LCID stays extreme at 38.1% of free float. Its cost to borrow has spiked to 229%. Availability is essentially zero at 0.0004%. Short sellers are locked in.

CRWV — CoreWeave — draws the most social media chatter among AI names. SI sits at 29.6% of free float. Availability is comfortable at 200%, so new shorts can still get in easily.

SpaceX (SPCX) short interest ticked up 2.7 percentage points this week to 27.9% of free float. With a $939 billion market cap, even small SI shifts represent enormous dollar values.

On the other side, IBKR saw short interest drop 21% in a week. Cost to borrow fell to 0.28%. Bears are exiting fast.