GRPN closes out the week before its August 6 earnings print at $27.58 — up 6.9% on the week and 14.6% over the past month — with a short base that has barely budged and a borrow market that remains almost entirely sealed shut.
The structural story is unchanged from previous notes, but the numbers have tightened further. Short interest now stands at 32.6% of free float — 13.3 million shares — up 13.7% on the week, back at the cycle high flagged in early July. FINRA's fortnightly count confirms 13.4 million shares short with days-to-cover at 9.1 days. That exit timeline is the crux of the problem for bears: at current volumes, full cover takes more than nine trading sessions even before the borrow constraint enters the calculation. The ORTEX short score rose to 78.1 as of July 30, its highest reading in the current tracking window, up from 75.8 a fortnight ago. Bears who added during last week's brief pullback to $25.81 are now underwater again, and the door behind them has effectively closed.
The borrow market confirms the trap. Availability ended the week at just 3.95% — roughly four shares still available to lend for every hundred already out. That is a slight improvement on the 1.1% reading mid-week, but the pattern across all of July has been the same: brief recoveries toward the low double-digits followed by a rapid collapse back to near-zero. The 52-week low is 0.51%, and the pool has spent the overwhelming majority of the past six weeks in single digits. Cost to borrow eased 15% on the week to 1.89%, which looks like relief but is consistent with a market where new short supply is exhausted rather than abundant — there is nobody left to pay a premium to because there is nothing left to borrow. Positioning looks structurally asymmetric rather than actively expensive.
Options traders are not hedging this setup. The put/call ratio came in at 0.38 on Friday, modestly above its 20-day average of 0.36 — a z-score of just 1.35 — but still close to the 52-week low of 0.31. Call open interest has dominated the options market throughout the summer rally. The PCR's 52-week high is 0.86; the current reading is barely above the floor. That sustained call-side dominance, sitting on top of a 32%-shorted float, is the structural setup that has driven this name's outsized intraday moves all summer.
The Street offers limited conviction in either direction, and the most recent analyst data is stale enough to treat cautiously. Goldman Sachs maintained a Sell rating in May with a $13 target — a figure now roughly half the current price of $27.58, suggesting that target was set against a very different stock. Bulls from Northland and Roth have historically carried targets north of $40, but those views date from mid-2025 and have not been refreshed. The mean consensus target of $26.33 sits marginally below Friday's close, implying the Street has not updated its work to reflect the summer re-rating. The ORTEX short score rank of 2 (second percentile) and utilization rank of 0 confirm this name sits at the most extreme end of the short-pressure universe.
The ownership structure adds one more layer of complexity heading into earnings. CEO Dusan Senkypl sold 1.35 million shares on June 11 at $16.54 — well below current levels — in what appears to have been a planned disposal. His remaining stake is 7.5% of the company. Pale Fire Capital holds 26.8% and has not changed its position recently. Together, insiders and affiliated entities control roughly half the float, which compresses the genuinely free-trading pool further and helps explain why the lending market drains so quickly when short demand spikes. The Q2 earnings release on August 6 is now less than a week away, and the question is not whether the structural tension in this name is elevated — it plainly is — but whether the actual numbers give either side enough of a catalyst to move first.
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