Earnings Anxiety Grips Markets as Bears Circle Tech

The Big Picture

Earnings anxiety is driving positioning across all asset classes this week. Short sellers, options traders, and insiders are all moving in the same direction — into defensive trades ahead of a packed calendar. The clearest signal: bears and insiders rarely align this tightly at the same time.

Oracle and Adobe in Focus

Oracle and Adobe both report Wednesday, September 10. They are the two most closely watched prints of the week. Oracle carries a $457B market cap into results with short interest at just 2.9% of free float — bulls hold the conviction. Adobe is a different story. Bears have loaded put options heavily all week. The stock is down 24% year-to-date and its RSI sits near 49. Short interest stands at 4.6% of free float. Traders are not buying the dip.

Short Sellers Double Down

Short interest data from ORTEX shows bears pressing hard ahead of results. Wolfspeed sits at 75.3% of free float shorted — near the top of the entire US market — after a 49% price collapse over three months. Hertz carries 61.7% short with borrowing costs above 7%. Chewy jumped 4.6 points in a week to 52.3%. Wix.com saw the biggest large-cap move — up 6.2 points to 17.8%.

Insiders and Analysts Signal Mixed Views

Insiders at NVIDIA, Elastic, and Corpay filed fresh sales this weekend. NVIDIA's short interest is just 1.2% of free float, making insider selling the key signal to watch. On the analyst side, Autodesk and Moody's received upgrades. Salesforce drew a target price increase. Both bulls and bears are making their bets before Wednesday's pivotal numbers land.