GDS Holdings reports today with the lending market for its shares exceptionally tight — a signal that short sellers have been building conviction ahead of the print.
Borrow availability has collapsed to just 2.4% of the shares-already-borrowed pool, meaning fewer than one share remains available for every forty already out on loan. That reading has oscillated near zero repeatedly through August: the lending pool ran completely dry on August 10 and again on August 13. The tightness coincides with a meaningful build in short interest, which has climbed 28% over the past month to 6.8% of the free float — a level large enough to matter. Despite the squeeze conditions in the lending market, cost to borrow remains modest at around 2.1%, and has actually eased 26% over the past month, suggesting shorts are not being forced out by cost pressure. The stock itself closed Tuesday at $33.65, up roughly 8% over the past month but down 5% on the most recent session, a reversal that arrived as the earnings date approached.
Options positioning does not confirm the bearish lean in short interest. The put/call ratio runs at 0.52, close to its 20-day average of 0.50 and barely a third of a standard deviation above it — squarely in neutral territory compared to the 52-week range of 0.16 to 0.89. Call open interest is comfortably dominant, pointing to a market that is not loading up on downside protection ahead of the release.
The bull and bear cases for GDS pull in opposite directions on the same core asset. Bulls point to the C-REIT launch, which priced at roughly 22x 2026 EBITDA versus GDS's own trading multiple of around 12-13x, as evidence of a persistent valuation gap. International operations are expected to deliver over $1 billion in EBITDA by 2028, and at current levels the EV/EBITDA multiple sits near 12.8x — cheap relative to peers if execution holds. Bears counter that Chinese tech demand remains structurally impaired and that regulatory changes to the REIT market threaten the sum-of-the-parts thesis that underpins most of the bull targets. Analyst direction has turned more cautious recently: TD Cowen trimmed its target from $37 to $36 in May while keeping a Buy, continuing a pattern of incremental target cuts since mid-2025 highs above $50. The gap between current targets and the stock's actual price near $33-34 has compressed sharply from a year ago.
Institutional activity adds a final layer of nuance. BlackRock added 1.8 million shares as recently as July, and Baron Capital built a position of 2.96 million additional shares through June. Tekne Capital and Carrhae Capital also added meaningfully. Against that, Sachem Head trimmed 615,000 shares. The net picture is one of active accumulation by a range of investors at prices close to where the stock trades today, which limits the read-through from short-interest pressure alone. The ORTEX short score of 71, sustained above 70 throughout August, confirms bearish positioning remains elevated — but the lending constraints and accumulation by long-only institutions mean the set-up is genuinely contested. The earnings report tonight will test whether GDS can demonstrate EBITDA momentum strong enough to reignite the valuation re-rating thesis — and whether the international growth story is on track to justify a multiple meaningfully above where the stock currently prices it.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open GDS 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.
