Lucid Group heads into August earnings with the borrow market back at its most extreme level — availability near zero, cost to borrow still above 200%, and short interest holding firmly above 19% of float after a 58% weekly rally.
The prior note documented CTB spiking to 310% on July 16, its highest reading in the 30-day window, before easing back to 204% by July 21. That modest pullback from the peak is the only relief in an otherwise locked lending market. Availability has re-collapsed to just 0.001% — essentially every share in the lending pool is lent out, matching the most extreme readings seen in June. For context: when the pool briefly opened to 6.4% in mid-July, fresh shorts entered. That window closed in a matter of days. CTB is now running nearly 750% higher than it was a week ago, reflecting just how expensive it has become to hold a new short position. Short interest itself has declined modestly from 20.5% of float to 19.4%, but the directional move is small and likely reflects covering rather than conviction; the days-to-cover reading of 4.1 means exits are not quick. The ORTEX short score has climbed to 85.6 — back near its recent high after briefly dipping to 81 during the mid-July relief window — and ranks in the first percentile of the ORTEX universe, making this one of the most short-pressured names tracked.
Options positioning has shifted in a way that cuts against the bearish borrow setup. The put/call ratio has eased to 1.20, nearly 1.8 standard deviations below its 20-day average of 1.31 — the least defensive reading in weeks and the lowest PCR of the past month. That means options traders added call exposure into this week's rally rather than hedging against further upside. The contrast is notable: the borrow market says shorts are trapped and borrowing is prohibitively expensive, while the options market says call buyers are leaning into the momentum. Those are not contradictory signals — they describe the same squeeze dynamic from different angles — but the shift in PCR is material enough to flag.
The Street remains broadly skeptical on the name. RBC Capital's Tom Narayan trimmed his target to $7.00 on July 13, keeping a Sector Perform rating — a move that landed almost exactly at the stock's current price. That is the most recent analyst action and it reflects the prevailing Street posture: not outright bearish, but with little conviction on the upside case. The mean price target across the coverage universe is $8.30, implying modest upside from $7.32, though several targets from earlier this year sit well above current levels following a series of downward revisions. Citigroup's Buy-rated analyst holds a $14 target, the most constructive reading on the Street, while TD Cowen has a Hold at $7. The bull case centres on the upcoming midsize platform and its expected unit-cost reduction of up to 70%, plus the Uber partnership and Saudi PIF's majority stake providing structural support. The bear case is simpler: the company still has no clear path to profitability, has suspended guidance, and has missed production targets repeatedly.
The ownership structure remains the critical anchor. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund holds 45.4% of shares and has not changed its position in recent quarters. Uber sits at 9.7%, having added 24 million shares earlier this year. Together those two holders control more than half the stock — a structural constraint on how aggressively shorts can press. That concentration likely explains why, even with SI near 20% of float, availability has stayed effectively at zero for most of the past six weeks: there is simply very little freely lendable stock relative to the demand for borrows.
The next catalyst that matters is the Q2 print on August 4. Earnings history here is uniformly unkind: the stock fell 10.6% on the day after the most recent release, and the prior print drew a 7.5% drop on the day and a 10.2% loss over the following week. With the stock now sitting 58% higher than it was a week ago and shorts paying above 200% annually to hold their positions, what to watch into the August 4 print is whether the borrow cost stays elevated enough to force covering — or whether the availability window cracks open again before then and gives fresh bears a cheaper entry.
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