GRPN enters its August 6 earnings print with short interest back at a cycle high, the borrow pool effectively sealed shut, and a stock that has just added another 10% on the week — a combination that has defined this name all summer but is now approaching its sharpest test yet.
Short interest has climbed further since last week's convergence notes flagged the reversal. It now stands at 32.6% of free float — 13.3 million shares short — up 13.7% on the week and back above the 31%-plus readings that marked the peak of early July pressure. FINRA's fortnightly confirms 13.4 million shares short with days-to-cover at 9.1 days. That mechanical exit problem is not new, but it is compounding. Bears who added during the stock's brief pullback last week are now underwater again, with no clean way out: at current volumes, full cover takes more than nine trading days even before the borrow constraint is considered.
The borrow market is the more urgent problem. Availability has tightened back to just 3.95% — roughly four shares available for every hundred already lent out. That is actually a slight improvement from the 1.1% reading on Tuesday, but the pattern across July has been consistent: brief recoveries into the low double-digits, followed by collapses back to near-zero. The 52-week low is 0.51%, reached earlier this year. Cost to borrow has eased 15% on the week to 1.89%, continuing a drift lower from the 2.77% intraday peak seen on July 27. The rate is not punishing in absolute terms, but the directional move this week — costs falling while availability briefly tightened further — suggests some marginal borrow supply has returned without shorts using it to add new positions. The ORTEX short score has pushed to 78.1, its highest reading in the current series, consistent with a lending market where structural exhaustion remains the baseline condition. The utilization rank scores in the bottom percentile of the universe, flagging this as one of the most constrained borrow situations across all tracked names.
Options traders are not positioned defensively heading into the print. The put/call ratio has edged up to 0.38 — marginally above its 20-day average of 0.36, with a z-score of 1.5 — but it remains near the low end of the 52-week range, which bottomed at 0.31 in late July. The options market is still overwhelmingly call-dominated. This is a meaningful contrast to the short interest picture: bears are heavily loaded and mechanically trapped, while options flow continues to lean toward the upside. That divergence has persisted all month, and it is the structural tension that makes this setup unusual.
The Street's read on Groupon is sharply divided, and the most recent data is dated. Goldman Sachs reiterated Sell in May, lifting its target to $13 from $10 after the prior quarter's results — a move that acknowledged improved momentum while maintaining a deeply bearish stance. That $13 target sits roughly 53% below the current $27.89 close, a wide gap that reflects genuine fundamental disagreement rather than a stale number. Bullish analysts at Northland and Roth have targets in the $44–$47 range from mid-2025. The mean target of roughly $26 is now marginally below the current price, meaning the stock has run through consensus. On valuation, the trailing P/E has expanded to 15.7x and EV/EBITDA to 12.9x, both drifting higher over the past month as the stock has rallied. The factor scores underline the tension: short score rank and utilization rank both sit at the bottom of the universe, while analyst recommendation differential is at the median — the data tells a squeeze story, not a fundamental re-rating.
The institutional picture adds one more complicating layer. CEO Dusan Senkypl sold 1.35 million shares on June 11 at $16.54 — a $22.3 million transaction at a price now 69% below where the stock trades. That sale, the largest insider transaction in the recent window, was executed well below current levels. Pale Fire Capital holds 26.8% of shares and has not reported a change since June, while Continental General Insurance added 690,000 shares in Q1. The concentrated ownership structure means any shift in these holders' intentions carries outsized weight.
Earnings history on this name is thin but pointed: the last two prints each produced one-day moves of 9%–12% higher, with five-day drifts continuing in the same direction. August 6 is the next moment where the short base either gets relief or faces another forced-cover event — and with availability near historically tight levels and days-to-cover above nine, how many shares actually return to the lending pool before the open that morning is the number worth watching.
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