RLMD Shorts Double While Borrow Stays Cheap — A Contradiction Worth Watching

Relmada Therapeutics heads into tonight's earnings print carrying a short position that has nearly doubled in six weeks — yet the borrow market tells a strikingly different story about conviction.

Short interest has climbed to 19% of the free float, up from roughly 10% at the end of June — an 83% jump in shares short over one month. That is a large and rapid accumulation. Yet the borrow market shows no signs of stress: cost to borrow runs at just 0.54%, barely changed over the past month, and availability is ample at 240% — meaning roughly 2.4 shares remain available to borrow for every one already lent out. The ORTEX short score has drifted up to 71.2, a level that flags meaningful bearish positioning, but the ease of borrowing suggests this is a deliberate directional bet rather than a desperate scramble for shares. Options positioning has also ticked toward caution, with the put/call ratio at 0.13 — above its 20-day average of 0.09 — though still low on an absolute basis and well within the year's range.

The bull-bear disagreement here is stark. The Street carries a consensus buy rating, with targets clustered around $12-19 against a current price of $5.37 — implying the analyst community sees well over 100% upside, driven by the clinical potential of Relmada's neuropsychiatry pipeline. Mizuho raised its target to $19 in March, nearly doubling its prior estimate, which was the most aggressive move in the coverage group. Bears, however, are pointing to the company's deep losses — the EV/EBITDA multiple is deeply negative, earnings power is negative, and this remains a pre-revenue clinical stage name with no near-term profitability path. The stock is down 15% over the past month to $5.37, and the short buildup has accelerated precisely as the price has weakened, suggesting sellers are not covering into the decline. Institutional ownership adds an interesting wrinkle: BlackRock added more than 6 million shares in the quarter through June, and VR Management added nearly 4 million — both substantial commitments that push back against the bearish thesis.

The one prior earnings reaction on record saw the stock gain just over 1% on the day but fall 12% over the following five sessions, a pattern that will be in focus given how aggressively short interest has built into this print. The earnings release will test whether the clinical or operational update is enough to force a rethink among the shorts who have piled in since late June — or whether the price weakness that drew them in continues.