Short positions in MULL collapsed 37.8% overnight. The GraniteShares 2x Long MU Daily ETF's borrow market has not moved an inch.
Short interest fell from roughly 9.8 million shares to 6.1 million on August 25. That is a sharp single-day move. But the borrow market shows no sign of relief. Availability remains at exactly 0%. Every share in the lending pool is still lent out. That has been the case every day since mid-July, with only one brief non-zero reading on July 15.
The cost to borrow tells the same story. CTB stood at 16.7% on August 25 — down slightly from the 18.4% peak on August 24, but still up 90% over the past month. As recently as late July, CTB was below 9%.
The partial short cover has not reopened the borrow pool. Shorts who remain in the position are still paying elevated rates with no room for new entrants.
The 37.8% daily drop sounds dramatic. The resulting level does not. Short interest sits at 873.7% of float. This is a 2x leveraged single-stock ETF. Float figures for these products fluctuate with daily creation and redemption activity, so the percentage is not directly comparable to a conventional equity. But the sheer scale confirms that short positioning in MULL remains structurally heavy relative to available shares.
One month ago, short interest was a fraction of current levels. The 397% one-month increase reflects the surge in bearish positioning that built through mid-August — and much of that positioning is still in place.
Options traders are reading this differently. The put-call ratio dropped to 0.46 on August 25. The 20-day average is 0.55. The z-score on that move is –3.2 — more than three standard deviations below the recent mean. That is an unusually sharp rotation into calls.
The stock rose 4.8% intraday on Tuesday. The call buying has continued into Wednesday even with the borrow market frozen and CTB elevated.
The ORTEX short score stands at 73.9, its highest level in the 10-day history shown. It has crept up from 71.9 on August 11.
Two things are moving in opposite directions here. Short interest is falling. Options positioning is turning bullish. But the borrow market has not loosened at all — availability at 0% means any new short seller faces the same constraints that pushed CTB above 18%. Watch whether the ongoing short cover is enough to crack that freeze, or whether the pool stays locked even as positions shrink.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open MULL 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.
