TCHP Shorts Retreat as Borrow Availability Surges

The story at TCHP this week is one of rapid short-position unwind, with the lending market flipping from tight to flush in a matter of days.

Short interest has collapsed. The ETF's short position dropped 44% week-on-week to just 0.14% of float — already a negligible level — and the real drama is in the borrow market behind it. Availability has swung from deeply constrained to extraordinarily loose. In mid-June, availability briefly fell as low as 11%, meaning roughly one share was available for every nine already borrowed. By July 21, that reading had exploded to nearly 2,000% — around 330,000 shares available to lend against a short book of fewer than 47,000. That is a complete reversal in the supply-demand balance for borrows. Cost to borrow has drifted down in step, easing to 1.58% from above 2.3% in early June. The borrow is now cheap and plentiful.

The ORTEX short score reinforces the direction of travel. At 29.4, the score has fallen sharply from a mid-July peak of 45, reached on July 13 when the short book was roughly double its current size. That score level signals limited short-side conviction, consistent with a fund where the dominant story is net inflows rather than active short positioning.

What drives the fund itself is straightforward: TCHP's blue-chip growth mandate means its performance tracks large-cap tech and quality growth names closely. The ETF gained 1.2% on July 21, trimming a modest 1.8% weekly decline. The one-month drift of around 2% lower reflects some softness in the underlying holdings rather than anything fund-specific. Valuation data for the ETF wrapper is not meaningful in the usual sense — this is a passively structured vehicle expressing a large-cap growth view, not a standalone earnings story.

With the borrow market now as loose as it has been all year, the next signal worth watching is whether short interest stabilises at this lower level or continues to shrink — and whether any renewed tightening in availability re-emerges if market sentiment toward large-cap growth names shifts.