HDV, the iShares Core High Dividend ETF, heads into the back half of August with short sellers in full retreat and borrowing conditions easier than they have been all year.
The most striking development this week is the pace of the short-covering. Short interest has fallen by more than a third in one week — down 36% — and has halved relative to a month ago. At less than 1% of the float (roughly 0.96%), shorts were never a major factor here, but the speed of the unwind is worth noting. Back in early July, shares short were running near 2 million; the latest estimate puts that figure at just over 900,000.
The borrow market tells the same story in a different voice. Cost to borrow has dropped from above 2% in early July to just 0.77% now — a more than 60% fall over 30 days. Availability has swung from tight to comfortable: a month ago, availability was near the lows for the year, at 42–56% in late June and early July, and touched a 52-week low of just 1.2% at its tightest point. It has since opened back up to 116%, meaning there are now roughly six million shares available against roughly 900,000 already borrowed. The borrow market has gone from stressed to relaxed in about five weeks. Options positioning reinforces the relatively calm mood: the put/call ratio sits at 0.39, fractionally below its 20-day average and a full standard deviation away from any hedging extreme. There is no meaningful defensive skew in the options market.
The ORTEX short score of 45 is close to the midpoint of its range, consistent with neither a squeeze setup nor a heavily crowded short. The score has drifted up modestly from 41 at the start of the month but is not sending a directional signal in either direction. For an income-oriented ETF trading at $29.07 — up 1.25% on the week and nearly 5% over the past month — this is roughly what you would expect: a product bought and held for its dividend yield rather than traded on short-term macro views.
The dividend cadence is active. A $0.087 distribution went ex-dividend in mid-July, the most recent in a series of regular payments. The broader portfolio strategy — holding large, high-yielding US equities — continues to attract inflows rather than bearish positioning.
What to watch from here is whether the rebound in availability stabilises or reverses: the borrow market moved from near-fully-lent to comfortably loose in a matter of weeks, and any renewed demand for short exposure would show up first in rising CTB and tightening availability before it registers in the short-interest estimate.
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Open HDV on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
