Short sellers added pressure to some already heavily-shorted names this week. Data as of July 21 shows a clear pattern of bears piling into beaten-down names.
HTZ saw the biggest move among large names. Short interest jumped to 76.7% of free float, up from 70.4% just seven days ago — a 6.3 percentage point swing. Availability sits at zero, meaning fresh borrow is essentially gone. The car rental giant has become one of the most crowded short trades in the market.
WOLF tells a similar story. Wolfspeed sits at 80.6% SI % FF with zero availability and a cost to borrow of 7.2%. The struggling chipmaker's stock is up 162% in three months, yet short sellers are not backing down.
The biggest weekly SI jump belongs to Willis Lease Finance (WLFC), which surged +11.5 percentage points in a week to 18.6% SI % FF.
On the squeeze side, REPL (Replimune) saw shorts cut by 5.6 points. Avis Budget (CAR) also trimmed from 32.7% to 29.5%. These drops could signal short covering pressure building.
LUCK — Lucky Strike Entertainment — holds the highest ORTEX short score at 96, with 47 days-to-cover and a cost to borrow of 27.8%. That's a squeeze risk profile worth watching closely.
In the news, Elon Musk's comments about competing with CMCSA in film caught attention, putting AMC briefly in focus on social platforms as retail traders speculate.
This is not financial advice.
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.
