Bears Circle Hertz, Chewy and Wolfspeed

Short sellers are piling into several familiar names. HTZ and CHWY top the pain rankings — Hertz sits at 75% SI % FF, up nearly 5 percentage points in seven days. Chewy is close behind at 72.4%, adding 5.8 points in the same stretch.

WOLF (Wolfspeed) is another hot target. Bears have driven SI % FF to 80% with zero shares left to borrow. That double-whammy — extreme short interest and no availability — sets the stage for a violent squeeze if any positive news lands.

LULU Bears Rebuild

LULU is drawing fresh short attention. ORTEX data flagged bears rebuilding positions as the Street turns cautious ahead of September earnings. SI sits at 9.8% of FF, but the trend is moving the wrong way for longs.

Semiconductor Watch

MCHP heads into earnings with shorts fading — a potential sign bears are covering before results. Rival TXN and NXPI are in focus too as the chip sector prepares for a wave of earnings reports.

Biggest Weekly Mover

CLBK (Columbia Financial) saw the sharpest move of the week. SI jumped from 5.3% to 27.6% of FF — a jump of 22 percentage points in seven days. That is an unusually aggressive build. Watch this one closely for further developments.

Overall, the short landscape shows bears concentrating in beaten-down consumer and auto names while selectively trimming chip exposure ahead of earnings season.