GRPN has pulled back 7% on Tuesday to $26.05, but the squeeze mechanics that have defined this name for weeks remain firmly in place — and the borrow market just got tighter, not looser.
The most important development this week is in the lending pool, not the price tape. Availability has collapsed to just 1.8% — meaning fewer than two shares remain available to borrow for every hundred already lent out. That is down sharply from 13.8% mid-last-week, and it continues the violent oscillation that has characterised this name all month. The 52-week low is 0.51%, and availability has now spent the bulk of July in single digits. Cost to borrow edged up 19% on the week to 2.14%, consistent with a market where new shorts face a genuinely constrained supply. The ORTEX short score ticked up to 76.3 on Tuesday, its highest reading in the recent series, reflecting the tightening borrow conditions. Short interest itself has eased marginally — down roughly 3.6% on the week to 28.8% of free float — continuing the slow bleed from above 31% in early July. But 28.8% is still a structural problem for bears. The FINRA fortnightly puts confirmed short shares at roughly 12.0 million, with days-to-cover at 6.1. That number has not moved. Bears cannot exit quickly, and the pool from which they might need to borrow to re-establish or maintain positions has all but dried up again.
The Street remains sharply divided, and the analyst picture is stale enough to warrant caution. The most recent action of note came from Goldman Sachs in mid-May, where the firm raised its Sell-rated target to $13 — a level the stock blew through weeks ago and now trades more than double. With GRPN at $26 and the consensus mean price target around $26, the stock is essentially trading at the average of what analysts think it is worth, but that average is pulled in wildly different directions: Goldman anchors the bear camp at $13, while bulls at Northland and Roth have targets in the $44–$47 range. The EV/EBITDA multiple has compressed to roughly 12x, down more than a full turn on the week, as the stock has backed off from its highs. The PE ratio of 14.8x reflects the market pricing in meaningful earnings improvement — a bet that remains contested. Factor scores reinforce the bear skepticism: the short score rank sits in the bottom 4th percentile of the universe, and the DTC rank is in the 13th percentile, both pointing to a heavily-shorted, slow-to-cover name.
Ownership tells a concentrated story. Pale Fire Capital holds 26.8% of shares outstanding and has been stationary. The more interesting line is CEO Dusan Senkypl, who received an additional 2.06 million shares in his most recently reported filing — yet filed a substantial open-market sale of 1.35 million shares at $16.54 on June 11, banking $22.3 million. That sale occurred well below where the stock trades today, which frames it as either disciplined profit-taking at what felt like a rich level, or a signal the CEO did not see the current $26 coming. Either reading creates ambiguity about insider conviction at current prices.
Earnings arrive on August 6. The last print, in May, drove a 12% gain the next day and held most of that over the following week. The prior print did the same, adding 9% the day after and extending to nearly 13% over five sessions. Both reactions were positive and meaningful — the stock has a history of beating into prints. With short interest still near 29% of float and availability at near-record tightness, the setup into August 6 is one where a positive surprise creates acute mechanical pressure on bears who cannot cover into a locked lending pool.
The question heading into August 6 is whether the fundamental print — particularly on billings and adjusted EBITDA, where guidance has been cautious — can sustain a price that is already up 61% over the past month.
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