Core Scientific enters the back half of August with a simpler but more uncomfortable setup than the one it carried into earnings: the stock is down sharply, analysts lifted targets anyway, and short sellers have barely flinched.
The earnings reaction tells the clearest story. When CORZ reported on July 28, the stock fell 12.6% on the day — a punishing initial move. The five-day recovery of roughly 10% clawed back most of that ground, but the week ending August 11 still saw the stock shed another 13.4%, closing at $19.76. The stock is now off about 16% over the past month. That is a meaningful reversal from the 10% single-session surge that preceded the print, documented in the previous note. What was then a story about shorts retreating into earnings has become a story about whether they return now that the print has disappointed.
Short interest has barely moved, and that is the interesting tension. Bears held roughly 20.4% of the free float through the post-earnings week — up about half a percentage point on the week — after having compressed from above 24% in early July to the current level. The borrow market offers no pressure in either direction: availability is running at nearly 200%, meaning there are roughly two shares available to borrow for every one already borrowed, and cost to borrow is less than 0.5%, close to its lowest reading of the past month. Shorts are not being squeezed out, and they are not rushing back in. The ORTEX short score has ticked up to 67.7 — its highest reading of the past two weeks — reflecting the combination of elevated SI and recent price weakness, though it remains well below the extreme zone. Options traders have grown marginally more cautious: the put/call ratio rose to 0.50, roughly 1.7 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.47, but it remains far below the 52-week high of 0.63. Defensive positioning has risen, but the move is not dramatic.
The Street responded to the earnings print in a way that contradicts the stock's behaviour. Almost every analyst who updated targets raised them, not cut them. B. Riley lifted its target from $33 to $42 while maintaining Buy. Macquarie moved from $35 to $38. Needham went from $29 to $35. Canaccord went from $30 to $36. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded outright to Outperform, lifting the target from $25 to $28. The consensus mean target now stands at $37.13, implying roughly 88% upside to the current price. The bull case centres on 2.6GW of approved power capacity, the $4.3B capital raise funding expansion, and growing contracted AI/HPC revenue. Bears counter that the company remains heavily reliant on self-mining revenue, faces delays in bringing the CRWV power infrastructure online, and has struggled to secure incremental power approvals at the pace required to accelerate the HPC pivot. EV/EBITDA has compressed to around 15x, down nearly 3 turns over the past month as the price has fallen.
The institutional picture adds a further layer worth noting. BlackRock raised its stake to 8.75% of shares as recently as July 31, adding roughly 3.5 million shares. Citadel Advisors added 5.3 million shares in the period through July 29. Jane Street built a position of nearly 24 million shares — essentially a new holding — as of May. Running the other direction, Situational Awareness LP cut its position by nearly 12 million shares through August 4. The insider tape is consistent: the Chief Legal Officer sold in multiple tranches throughout July and into early August, totalling around $450,000 in proceeds, while the CEO sold just over $354,000 worth in mid-July. These are not disorderly exits, but the pattern of selling near the $22 range — prices now above the current stock level — is worth registering.
The next scheduled earnings date is November 2. Between now and then, the test is whether the analyst consensus can pull the stock back toward targets that sit roughly $17 above the current price, or whether the gap between Street optimism and short-seller scepticism — with 20% of the float still borrowed — narrows the harder way.
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