Two days ago, PTF availability sat at 74%. Today it has loosened back to 111% — but the cost to borrow just broke 10%. The divergence between those two data points is the story.
The borrow rate on the Invesco Dorsey Wright Technology Momentum ETF hit 9.99% on August 27. That is up 76% in one week and 72% over the month. For context, PTF was borrowing at under 3% as recently as mid-July.
Cost to borrow and availability do not always move together. Availability has bounced — from a trough around 32% on August 19 to 111% today. That suggests more shares have entered the lending pool. But lenders are charging more for them. The price of the borrow has risen even as the supply has partially recovered.
That combination is unusual. It points to sustained demand from short sellers willing to pay up, not a simple squeeze driven by scarcity alone.
Short interest has pulled back slightly from its peak. It stood at 1.42% of the free float on August 27, down from 1.61% earlier in the week. The monthly gain remains substantial at 77%.
At 1.42% of float, the absolute short level is still low for most securities. For a tech momentum ETF — a structure that typically attracts almost no directional positioning — it remains elevated relative to PTF's own history.
The put-call ratio has eased slightly from the August 25 spike of 0.79, which registered 2.7 standard deviations above the 20-day mean. The current PCR of 0.71 remains above the 20-day average of 0.62. Options positioning has not reversed. Defensive hedging is still running above its recent baseline.
The previous note flagged availability collapsing to 74% as the headline risk. That specific pressure has partially eased. Availability has risen back above 100%. But the borrow cost has accelerated through that same window, suggesting the underlying demand driving short activity has not diminished. Shorts may have covered some exposure — hence the dip in shares short — while remaining willing to pay a higher rate for what positions they retain.
Watch: Whether the cost to borrow holds above 10% as availability continues to recover. A sustained divergence — loose supply, high price — would be an unusual signal for a fund of this type.
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