LEU Shorts Squeeze Tighter as Borrow Dries Up

Centrus Energy enters the back half of August with the most crowded short book in its recent history — and not a single share left to borrow.

The borrow market tells the starkest part of the story. Availability has fallen to zero: every share in the lending pool is currently lent out, a condition that has persisted, with only brief interruptions, since mid-July. Short interest has climbed to 30.5% of the free float — up 7.7% on the week and 20.7% over the past month — leaving days-to-cover near seven according to the most recent FINRA settlement data. The ORTEX short score has drifted to 76.8, its highest reading in the trailing ten days, ranking in the first percentile of the entire universe on both short score and availability tightness. Bears have piled in aggressively; the lending market simply has no more capacity to accommodate them at these rates. Cost to borrow, notably, has actually eased — down roughly 4% on the week to 1.1% annually — which underscores that the constraint is supply, not price: there is nothing left to lend, and lenders aren't demanding a premium because the pool is already exhausted.

Options positioning has shifted more defensive in recent weeks, though not dramatically so. The put/call ratio is running at 0.71, slightly above its 20-day average of 0.67 and about 1.2 standard deviations from the mean — elevated but well short of the 52-week high of 0.83. The directional skew has been building since late July, when the PCR climbed from a trough around 0.63 to its current level. That gradual drift toward puts, set against a backdrop of exhausted borrow, suggests options traders are hedging rather than speculating outright — a cautious posture rather than a panicked one.

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