EWS — the iShares MSCI Singapore ETF — enters the final week of September with a notable divergence: short interest has roughly doubled over the past month, yet the borrow market has loosened dramatically in just the last week, suggesting the wave of fresh shorts may have already peaked.
The short-side story is the most interesting angle here. Short interest has climbed nearly 80% over the past month, reaching 5.8% of the free float — a level that genuinely warrants attention for an ETF that typically sits well below 3%. Yet the direction has sharply reversed this week: shorts fell roughly 9.5% over the past five sessions to around 1.72 million shares, unwinding a portion of the September build. The week of September 9 marked the inflection point, when shares short jumped from roughly 630,000 to nearly 1.9 million in a single session — a tripling that points to a specific tactical bet on Singapore equity weakness, rather than a slow drift higher.
The borrow market tells a strikingly different story this week. Availability has exploded from tight to extremely loose — from roughly 547% on September 16 to over 4,298% by September 22, meaning there are now more than 43 shares available to borrow for every share already lent out. That swing over just five sessions is dramatic. For context, the tightest availability reading of the past year was 55%, hit during the peak of the September short-interest build. Cost to borrow has also eased back to around 1.23% after briefly touching 1.74% on September 21 — not expensive by any measure, but the week's intraday spike hints at a brief scramble that has since resolved. Together, loose availability and declining short interest suggest that whoever built the September position has started to cover.
Options positioning has also shifted. The put/call ratio touched its 52-week high of 1.20 on September 15 — right at the peak of the short-interest build — and has since dropped back to 0.62, close to its 20-day average of 0.52. The z-score is now just 0.26, meaning options sentiment is essentially neutral. That mirrors the short-interest pattern: defensive positioning was most intense in mid-September and has since unwound alongside the covering activity. The picture that emerges is a coordinated bearish bet on Singapore equities that came, crested, and is now retreating.
On the ownership side, the standout is BlackRock's rapid accumulation. A Schedule 13G/A filed June 4 shows BlackRock Portfolio Management lifted its stake from 7.7% to 18.5% — adding nearly 4.9 million shares in a matter of weeks. As the ETF's own manager, BlackRock's dominant holding is expected, but the pace of the increase is notable and likely reflects creation-basket mechanics as inflows picked up. Jane Street also more than doubled its position to 1.04 million shares by end of June, a move consistent with market-making activity as trading volumes in the ETF increased. The ORTEX short-score has drifted lower through the week, landing at 35.0 from a recent high of 41.9 on September 16 — a direct reflection of the easing borrow conditions and short covering now visible in the data.
What to watch next is whether the short-interest decline continues toward its pre-September baseline near 500,000–600,000 shares, or stabilises near current levels — that will reveal whether the September build was a brief tactical trade or the opening leg of a longer bearish thesis on Singapore equities.
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