Analysts are cutting targets. The borrow pool is nearly empty. Two weeks after a 24% earnings collapse, KLAR is generating convergence signals across every dimension of the short-selling market simultaneously.
Availability has dropped to just 12% — meaning only one share remains available to borrow for every eight already lent out. That is an 85% collapse in available supply over a single week.
On August 17, availability sat at 84%. It has since fallen to 12% in six trading sessions. The lending market has essentially closed.
Cost to borrow has followed. CTB rose to 1.31% on August 25, up 74% in one week. That remains relatively modest in absolute terms, but the speed of the move matters. When availability collapses this fast, CTB typically follows with a lag.
Short interest itself stands at 9.1% of free float — approximately 34.5 million shares. That is up 24% over the past month, and up 7.6% over the past week. The bear thesis built before the earnings print has not unwound.
Two fresh downgrades landed this week. Wolfe Research cut from Outperform to Peer Perform on August 25. UBS downgraded from Buy to Neutral on August 24, slashing its price target 30% from $23 to $16.
Those are not isolated moves. JP Morgan downgraded to Neutral on August 19. Morgan Stanley, BMO Capital, Barclays, TD Cowen, and Wells Fargo all lowered targets that same day. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods maintained its Outperform but cut its target from $26 to $21 on August 21.
The consensus mean target now sits at $20.28, against a current price of $14.27. That implies 42% upside on paper. But the direction of revisions is what matters — every analyst who touched the stock since earnings cut their number.
The ORTEX short score sits at 75.8, in the 2nd percentile of all stocks for short positioning. The factor model's EPS momentum ranks at the 93rd percentile over 30 days and 95th percentile over 90 days — meaning forward earnings estimates are actually rising even as the stock falls. That disconnect is worth watching.
BlackRock added 2.7 million shares as of July 31. Marshall Wace and Pictet both built new positions in the most recent reporting period. Those are counter-signals against the short thesis — though the data predates the earnings crash.
The options PCR of 0.64 sits modestly above its 20-day mean of 0.61. Call positioning still slightly dominates, but hedging demand has grown steadily since the August 18 collapse.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open KLAR 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.
