Nebius Group has snapped back hard from last week's retreat, gaining nearly 10% in five sessions to $232.80, yet the short side is quietly rebuilding — creating a tension that didn't exist when the covering wave was running.
The positioning picture has shifted since the prior note. Short interest, which had stabilised around 44.9 million shares after the dramatic covering from August's 63-million peak, has ticked higher again this week. It now stands at 46.1 million shares, up 2.5% on the week — the first meaningful re-accumulation since the covering stalled. That puts shorts back at 21.1% of the free float, essentially unchanged from the 20.6% flagged last week but now trending in the wrong direction for anyone betting on further squeeze dynamics. More telling is what's happened to availability: it has tightened sharply, dropping from 83% a week ago to 46% today. That's a significant reversal — borrow supply that looked comfortable is being absorbed fast. Cost to borrow has also ticked up 10% on the week to 0.80%, though it remains far below the 1.75% peaks seen in late August. The ORTEX short score is holding at 68.6, roughly where it's been all month, suggesting the broader bearish conviction hasn't broken — it's just been temporarily interrupted by the price rally.
Options traders are sending the clearest bullish signal in weeks. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.876, two full standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.915 — the most call-skewed reading since the summer rally. That's a meaningful contrast with the short side: options flow is tilting aggressively toward upside exposure just as shorts are adding to positions. Whether this reflects genuine conviction or hedged momentum-chasing ahead of earnings in November is the open question, but the divergence is sharp enough to notice.
The Street is divided in a way that reflects genuine uncertainty about the story. Rothschild initiated on Monday with a Sell rating and an $84 target — a stark outlier given the stock trades at $232.80. Truist, which initiated two weeks ago, sits at the opposite extreme with a Buy and a $355 target. Between them, bulls point to Nebius's vertically integrated AI cloud infrastructure, its NVIDIA and Microsoft partnerships, and an EPS momentum score ranking in the 98th percentile of the universe over the past 90 days. Bears flag a still-unprofitable business — the trailing P/E is deeply negative at -73.7x, the stock trades at 6.8x book — and the risk that US data-centre regulatory pressure delays capacity buildout. DA Davidson's Neutral at $250 and Piper Sandler's Neutral at $224 sit closest to the current price, suggesting the middle of the Street sees fair value roughly here. The mean target of $276 implies modest upside from this level, but the dispersion between $84 and $355 is unusually wide even for a high-growth name.
The ownership register adds another layer of interest. NVIDIA holds a disclosed 9.3% stake as of July 20, Goldman Sachs has disclosed 10.5%, and both are passive 13G filers — strategic and financial alignment rather than activist pressure. Notably, Goldman added more than 13 million shares in its last reported period, a substantial accumulation. Founder Arkady Volozh remains the anchor at 10.75%, though his position edged down by 45,000 shares in the most recent filing. The insider picture is less constructive: Director Boynton John Wilson IV sold roughly $1.1 million of stock on September 15, all under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan — so mechanically significant rather than a directional signal. The 90-day net insider position is negative at -$46 million in aggregate value.
The last two earnings prints define the binary the stock faces in November. August's Q2 report triggered a 32% single-day gain. The prior print, in late July, dropped the stock 21% on the day before recovering 20% over the following week. With the next event on November 12, the question over the coming weeks is whether the short rebuilding that started this week accelerates into the print — or whether the options market's call-heavy positioning and the tightening borrow environment conspire to keep squeezing those new shorts before the numbers arrive.
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