OEF, the iShares S&P 100 ETF, is catching attention this week — not for short selling pressure, but for how dramatically that pressure has unwound.
The most striking development is in the lending market. Availability has ballooned to roughly 2,940% — meaning there are nearly 30 shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. That is the loosest reading in at least a month. One week ago, availability was sitting closer to 990%, so the expansion of nearly 200% in seven days reflects a meaningful release of borrow demand. Cost to borrow has also dropped sharply, falling 28% on the week to just 0.37% — roughly a third of where it stood in mid-July when borrowing costs briefly touched 1.74%. Together, these moves describe a lending market that has gone from moderately active to deeply relaxed in a short space of time.
Short interest itself is negligible and confirms the broader picture. At 0.11% of free float — around 94,000 shares — there is no meaningful bearish position in the fund to speak of. That figure fell 7% on August 18 alone, continuing a longer-term collapse: short interest is down 46% versus a month ago, when it peaked around 174,000 shares in late July. The ORTEX short score has also retreated steadily, dropping from 33.6 on August 5 to 27.4 today, putting it well into low-conviction territory. For an ETF of this size, these numbers represent routine hedging flows at most, not a structural bearish thesis.
Options positioning reinforces the calm. The put/call ratio is running at 0.97, essentially flat relative to its 20-day average of 0.99, and the z-score of -1.3 actually reflects a slight lean toward calls rather than puts. That is a meaningful contrast to early July, when the PCR briefly spiked above 3.2 — a period that aligned with the elevated short interest and higher borrow costs seen then. The normalisation in both measures suggests the defensive hedging activity that was present six weeks ago has largely been unwound.
Institutional ownership is broadly stable. The largest declared holder is Managed Account Advisors with just under 5.9% of shares, trimming slightly in Q1. Two Sigma added close to 497,000 shares in the same period, making it one of the more active movers among the top ten holders. Most others made minor adjustments in either direction — the profile of a widely-held, low-turnover passive vehicle rather than a stock with concentrated conviction on either side.
The stock itself is down 0.5% on the week to $378.75 but up just over 3% on the month, broadly tracking the underlying large-cap index. With no upcoming earnings event to anchor a catalyst and borrow conditions this loose, the next notable signal to watch is whether any renewed macro hedging demand — through options or the short book — rebuilds as the market moves deeper into the back half of August.
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