Bears Load Up on Chewy and Wix Ahead of Earnings

Short sellers are making bold pre-earnings bets. Chewy leads the charge as the most newsworthy mover this week.

Chewy under heavy fire. SI hit 52.3% of free float on September 3. That's up from 47.7% just seven days earlier. Bears reloaded aggressively across five straight sessions. Earnings are due in days. A miss could punish longs hard. A beat could spark a violent short squeeze.

Wix.com surprises shorts. WIX saw the biggest weekly jump among mid-cap names. SI leapt from 11.5% to 17.8% in just one week. That's a 6.2 percentage point move. Traders are clearly positioning ahead of results.

Hertz stays stubbornly shorted. HTZ sits at 61.7% SI. The number has barely budged for two weeks. With shares down 55% over three months, bears are patient.

Reddit's bear case builds. RDDT short interest stands at 15.4%. Analysts are actively debating the Google search overhang. SI has been creeping higher through the week.

Lululemon shorts quietly trim. LULU SI eased from 11.4% to 10.2%. Bears are paring back positions. That could signal reduced conviction ahead of its own earnings event.

1-800-Flowers holds extreme shorts. FLWS carries 74.2% SI with 29 days to cover. That is one of the highest DTC readings in the market right now.