RIVN heads into its July 30 Q2 print with the stock up 5% from the July 25 preview low but still carrying one of the heavier short books in the EV space.
Short interest has edged higher since the last note. It now stands at 11.7% of the free float — roughly where it was two weeks ago before briefly dipping — with 142.7 million shares short and a further 2.8% added in a single session on July 27. That is worth contextualising against the borrow market, which has loosened materially. Availability has tightened from the ~282% reading cited in the July 25 article to 216% today, still meaning more than two shares are available for every one currently borrowed. Cost to borrow remains negligible at 0.54%. The ORTEX short score has ticked up to 64.4 from 62.2, its highest reading of the recent window, signalling that bearish positioning has firmed modestly rather than unwound. Options tell a different story: the put/call ratio of 0.91 is almost exactly at its 20-day mean, with a z-score near zero. Derivatives traders are neither bracing for a crash nor expressing unusual optimism.
The most notable pre-print development is Piper Sandler's upgrade on July 27 — the day before the previous earnings date — from Neutral to Overweight with a target raised to $20. That directly contradicts Morgan Stanley's Underweight maintained at $13, illustrating the breadth of disagreement on the Street. The consensus sits at Hold with a mean target of $18.85, roughly 13% above the current $16.69. Bulls point to the Volkswagen joint venture as a path to profitability, a widening vehicle lineup, and the argument that cash burn concerns are already priced in. Bears, anchored by Morgan Stanley's $13 target, focus on the absence of profits, supply chain fragility, and a competitive EV market that shows no sign of easing. BNP Paribas is the outlier bull at $24; the $11 spread between the highest and lowest targets reflects genuine uncertainty rather than a simple valuation debate.
Porsche Automobil Holding added 62.9 million shares in the most recently reported quarter, becoming the largest disclosed holder at 14.6% of shares. Amazon holds 11%, unchanged. Together these two anchor holders control more than a quarter of the company — a structural feature that limits the effective free float and makes the 11.7% short interest figure feel more consequential than the headline number alone suggests. On the insider side, recent activity has been uniformly on the sell side: the CFO sold across multiple tranches in May and June, and the CEO sold in late May. These are modest in dollar terms but directionally consistent.
Historically, the last three Rivian earnings prints have all produced negative one-day reactions: -9.9%, -0.2%, and -6.5% respectively. The five-day window was mixed. The print on July 30 will therefore test whether a partially recovered stock price — up from the July 8 lows but still down 6% on the week — can break that pattern, and whether the Piper upgrade and stable borrow conditions are enough to offset a short book that has, contrary to the prior note, begun to rebuild.
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