Core Scientific has dropped another 5% this week to $18.85, extending a post-earnings slide that has now wiped roughly 10% off the stock in a month — and the bears who survived earnings are showing no sign of covering.
Short sellers remain dug in at an elevated level. Short interest holds at 20.5% of the free float, barely changed from the 20.4% reported in last week's note, and up about 1.5% on the week in share terms after a brief dip Tuesday. The compression from above 24% in early July has stalled completely. Notably, the borrow market does not support a squeeze narrative: availability runs at 176%, meaning there are roughly 1.75 shares still available to lend for every share already borrowed. Cost to borrow is a negligible 0.5%. With borrow this cheap and this accessible, there is no mechanical pressure forcing shorts to close. The ORTEX short score of 68.9 — up from 64.5 two weeks ago — reflects that the short thesis is gaining rather than losing momentum.
Options traders are not adding to the defensive tone. The put/call ratio is 0.47, almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.48 and a quarter-standard-deviation below it. This is a market mid-range reading, nowhere near the year's high of 0.63. Options positioning is essentially neutral, which means the pressure on the stock is coming from holders selling or staying away rather than from fresh hedging activity.
The Street is constructive but the stock has moved well below where analysts pointed after earnings. Following the July 28 print, B. Riley raised its target to $42, Macquarie to $38, Needham to $35, and Canaccord to $36. The mean target now sits at $37.13 — roughly double the current price of $18.85. That gap is wide enough to raise questions about whether targets will hold at next review rather than whether the stock has more upside. KBW upgraded to Outperform on July 30, lifting its target to $28, which at least sits closer to where the stock is trading. The factor data tells an interesting story beneath the price action: EPS momentum ranks in the 100th percentile over 30 days and the 98th over 90 days, and the EPS surprise score is a perfect 100. Analyst recommendation differentiation ranks in the 95th percentile. The stock's problem is not fundamental momentum — it is that the market is not currently paying for it. EV/EBITDA has eased to 15.2x, down about 2 turns over the past month as the stock has de-rated.
Institutional flows add one more layer of complexity. Situational Awareness LP cut its position by nearly 12 million shares as of August 4, a meaningful reduction from what had been a top-five holding. BlackRock added 3.5 million shares to reach 8.75% of the company, reported as of July 31. Citadel Advisors added 5.3 million shares. Jane Street built a position of 20 million shares from near zero as of June 30. The picture is one of active churn rather than consensus accumulation — the smart-money base is restructuring, not simply adding. On the insider front, CLO Todd DuChene has sold approximately 40,000 shares across multiple tranches since mid-July at prices ranging from $20 to $23, all well above where the stock trades today. CEO Adam Sullivan sold 15,584 shares at $22.72 on July 16. All transactions carry low significance scores of 1-2, and the volumes are small relative to the float, but the direction is consistent: insiders have been sellers at every level above $20.
The next earnings event is dated to November 2, which leaves the market without a hard catalyst for over ten weeks. The prior two prints moved the stock violently in opposite directions — down 12.6% immediately after July 28, then recovering 10% over the following five days; and down 3.5% after the August 6 event before falling a further 9% over the next week. The pattern is consistent: initial reactions are sharp, and the recovery depends entirely on whether the broader sector bid holds. This week, close peers HUT and WULF fell 9% and 6.7% respectively on the week, while CLSK and IREN managed to hold flat or gain slightly — suggesting sector weakness rather than CORZ-specific selling is contributing to the current leg down.
With shorts comfortable, borrow loose, and the nearest hard catalyst ten weeks away, the key variable to track is whether the $37 consensus target cluster begins to migrate lower as analysts confront a stock trading at half their marks.
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