SMH shorts ease as borrow market loosens — but bears haven't fled

SMH has bounced 4.5% in a single session to $584.08, yet the stock is still down nearly 3% on the week and more than 11% over the past month — a relief rally inside a deeper drawdown, with shorts trimming but far from capitulating.

The borrow picture has shifted materially since the July 15 note flagged maximum tightness. A week ago availability had collapsed to 21% — one share available for every four already lent out, matching the most constrained conditions of the past year. It has since loosened to 51.7%, more than doubling in a week. That is still well inside the "tight" range, but the direction has reversed sharply. Cost to borrow has fallen in lockstep, easing 16% on the week to just over 1%, its lowest reading in the 30-day window. Short interest itself edged down 5% on Tuesday to 16.76 million shares, though at 16.4% of free float it remains elevated — up 31% versus a month ago, when bears were running at roughly 13% of float. The loosening in availability and borrow cost reflects some short covering and a modest increase in lending supply following Tuesday's rally, but SI is still near a monthly peak. Positioning looks less extreme than last week, not relaxed.

Options tell a slightly more constructive story. The put/call ratio eased to 2.84 on Tuesday, below both Monday's reading of 3.23 and the 20-day mean of 3.03. That brings the ratio to roughly half a standard deviation below its recent average — a mild shift in tone from the defensive posture that dominated late June and early July, when the PCR pushed as high as 3.61. The 52-week low of 0.54 remains a distant reference point; even at the current eased level, puts still outnumber calls by nearly three-to-one. The ORTEX short score held steady at 66.5, essentially flat across the past two weeks, suggesting the model sees the overall short setup as broadly unchanged despite the intraday move.

On the institutional side, the most recent disclosed data (March 31) showed Morgan Stanley adding 2.8 million shares — a position increase of roughly that size — while Managed Account Advisors trimmed 2.25 million. JPMorgan and Bank of America both added meaningfully. Those flows are now nearly four months stale and predate the May-to-July drawdown; they should be treated as historical context rather than current positioning signal.

The key tension to watch is whether short interest holds near the 16% level or begins a more sustained unwind. Availability is loosening from extreme tightness, but bears added aggressively through the July 8-14 window and have not yet shown a definitive retreat. Whether Tuesday's 4.5% move triggers broader covering — or simply gives new shorts a better entry — will be visible in the next few daily SI readings.