Options traders are piling into calls on MULL even as the borrow market runs completely dry. The GraniteShares 2x Long MU Daily ETF rose 4.8% intraday Tuesday while its lending market tightened to its most extreme level in months.
The borrow market for MULL has no slack left. Availability has fallen to 0% — every share in the lending pool is currently lent out. This level has persisted for over a month, with the most recent non-zero reading dating to mid-July.
Cost to borrow reflects that pressure. CTB hit 18.4% on August 24. That is up 57% in a single week and up 89% over the past month. As recently as July, CTB was sitting below 9%. The doubling over six weeks signals sustained and growing demand from short sellers trying to maintain positions in a product where supply is structurally constrained.
For a 2x leveraged ETF like MULL — which resets its exposure daily — this is a meaningful complication. Borrowing costs compound alongside the underlying exposure.
Against that backdrop, options traders are moving in the opposite direction. The put-call ratio dropped to 0.46 on August 25. The 20-day average sits at 0.55. The z-score on that move is -3.23 — a sharp statistical outlier, indicating a significant one-session surge in call buying relative to recent norms.
The timing aligns with a 4.8% intraday rally in the stock. Micron Technology, the underlying that MULL tracks at 2x leverage, appears to be driving the momentum.
The ORTEX short score for MULL stands at 73.9 as of August 24, up from 71.9 on August 11. The score has risen steadily over the past two weeks. A higher short score signals increasing short-side pressure across the composite of lending, positioning, and flow signals.
What makes the current setup unusual is the direct tension between that rising short score and the sharp drop in the PCR. Short-side demand is elevated and borrow is fully tapped out — yet call buyers are actively betting on further upside in a leveraged product where every 1% move in Micron translates to roughly 2% in MULL.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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