Bears Pile In Before Earnings Week

Short sellers are ramping up positions ahead of a heavy earnings calendar, with several well-known names seeing sharp increases in short interest over the past seven days.

CHWY leads the charge. Short interest at Chewy hit 52.3% of free float as of September 3 — up 4.6 percentage points in just one week. Bears are loading puts ahead of the retailer's upcoming results.

WIX saw the biggest weekly jump among larger-cap names. Short interest rose 6.2 points to 17.8% of FF. The web platform stock is now one of the most aggressively shorted tech names heading into this week.

WOLF remains a bear favourite. Wolfspeed sits at 75.3% of free float shorted — near the top of the entire US market. The chip maker's shares have dropped 49% over three months.

HTZ is another standout. Hertz carries 61.7% of FF shorted and availability has dried up completely. The cost to borrow sits above 7%, signalling strong conviction from shorts.

On the other side, GME shorts are retreating. GameStop's SI dropped 4.4 points to 10.3% of FF this week — the biggest decline among large enough names. That unwind could signal either profit-taking or a defensive squeeze exit.

TENB is a new entrant to watch. Tenable Holdings saw short interest climb 4.4 points to 13.5% of FF ahead of earnings. Bears see it as vulnerable.

Data sourced from ORTEX. This is not financial advice.