GLD is entering the back half of July with shorts retreating for a second time and options traders at their most call-heavy in over a year — the rebuild that looked threatening on July 14 has already started to unwind.
The short interest story has moved fast this week. After bears rebuilt from 11.3 million shares to 12.95 million between July 10 and July 14 — the episode covered in the previous note — that position has now largely dissolved again. Shares short dropped sharply on July 21, falling to 11.7 million, a 6% single-day decline and the lowest reading since early June. The one-month change has pulled back to around 11%, well off the elevated pace it was running at mid-month. Borrow availability has loosened in step, recovering to 109% — meaning roughly one share remains available for every share already lent — after tightening to exactly 100% during the peak of the rebuild. Cost to borrow has moved the other way from last week's note: it hit 1.07% on July 14 but has since more than halved, dropping to 0.70% by July 21. The lending market is no longer under any pressure.
The options picture is where the real story sits this week. Call positioning has become extreme. The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.49, nearly 2.4 standard deviations below its 20-day mean of 0.59 — the most call-skewed reading of the past year, with the 52-week low at 0.39 just barely below current levels. Two weeks ago, this same options skew was already the bullish outlier in an otherwise mixed setup. Now, with the PCR at 0.49 and the z-score at -2.4, call dominance has deepened materially. Options traders are more committed to upside exposure in GLD than at any point in the past twelve months.
That positioning aligns with the price action, though the month-long view is more mixed. GLD closed at $374.81 on July 21, up nearly 2% on the day and about 0.7% on the week. The one-month return is still modestly negative at -3.2%, reflecting the mid-June softness in gold prices. The ORTEX short score has drifted down to 51.3, essentially flat across the past ten sessions and well off the more elevated readings seen in early July when bears were more active. A score near 51 signals neither particular short-side conviction nor an extreme squeeze setup — the positioning environment is, by that measure, neutral.
Institutional holders reported as of March 31 show Morgan Stanley as the largest disclosed holder with 11 million shares, though that position was trimmed by nearly 3 million shares in Q1. JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs both added shares in the same period, each building positions of roughly 2-2.4 million shares. The divergence in institutional flows — large broker-dealers trimming while others add — reflects the broader uncertainty around gold's near-term direction even as longer-term structural demand from central banks remains a tailwind the fund has repeatedly benefited from.
What to watch: whether the options skew at these extremes is sustained or mean-reverts as GLD tests whether the one-month decline resolves higher, and whether short interest makes a third rebuilding attempt from the 11-12 million share range that has now twice proven to be a floor.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open GLD on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
