QQEW, the First Trust Nasdaq-100 Select Equal Weight ETF, enters the week with a striking disconnect: options flow has turned sharply bullish while short interest quietly ratchets higher from a very low base.
The options signal is the most striking development this week. The put/call ratio collapsed to just 0.0125 — more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.22. That is an unusually lopsided call-heavy posture, and at 2.3 standard deviations below the mean, it ranks as one of the most extreme bullish options readings in recent months. For an equal-weight ETF, where positioning tends to be muted, the skew stands out.
Short interest tells a quietly different story, though it remains far too small to be alarming. Shares short have risen roughly 51% over the past week and more than 677% over the past month — but those numbers are amplified by a tiny base. QQEW's short interest amounts to less than 0.1% of the float, well below any threshold that would signal conviction from bears. Borrow cost has climbed 38% on the week to 5.8%, elevated for an ETF of this type. Availability has tightened sharply — from above 1,800% a fortnight ago to 669% now, still comfortably in normal territory but moving in a direction worth noting. The 52-week low on availability was 23%, so there is ample room before the lending market gets genuinely stressed.
The ORTEX short score sits at 40.2, near the middle of its range and broadly stable over the past two weeks after a brief spike to 48 on July 17. That mid-range reading reinforces the view that positioning here is neither crowded nor particularly aggressive — the short-interest surge in percentage terms is a mathematical artefact of starting from near zero. What the lending data does confirm is that someone has been incrementally active in the borrow market, which is unusual for a passive ETF vehicle.
QQEW closed Tuesday at $155.46, up nearly 1% on the day but down 1.3% on the week and just under 1% lower over the past month. The equal-weight structure means the fund's fortunes diverge from cap-weighted Nasdaq benchmarks whenever mega-cap names lead or lag the broader index — a dynamic that has been particularly relevant in 2026 as AI-linked heavyweights have continued to dominate index returns. The most recent dividend on record was a modest $0.02 per share declared in March 2026, suggesting income generation remains a secondary feature of the fund.
The clearest thing to watch next is whether the call-dominated options posture reflects a genuine directional bet on Nasdaq breadth improving, or simply thin open interest in a lightly traded ETF options market — because in a fund this size, one large institutional hedge can move the put/call ratio dramatically.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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