The lending pool for TM has contracted dramatically over the past two weeks. Availability has fallen to 12.4%, meaning roughly one share remains available for every eight already borrowed. At the same time, Toyota's own car registration data is posting record August figures in several markets.
Availability stood above 100% in late August. It has since collapsed. On 23 September it touched 3.3%, the tightest reading in the data window. As of 29 September it sat at 12.4%, still well below the 50% threshold that signals a comfortable lending market.
Cost to borrow has moved in lockstep. It was 0.63% on 31 August. By 29 September it reached 3.17%, up 63.5% in a single week and up more than 400% over the month. That is the highest level since late August.
Short interest has also been climbing. Estimated short shares rose 9.4% over the past week and 20.8% over the past month. The direction is clear: more shorts are being put on just as the pool of available shares to borrow is shrinking.
Note that the absolute short position remains very small relative to Toyota's enormous share count. The percent of free float figure is not calculable from the snapshot, but the previous ORTEX article on this name cited a figure of 0.01% of free float. The borrowing pressure is therefore a story about scarcity of supply, not about a large or conviction-driven short campaign.
The dividend ex-date fell on 29 September, the same day as the tightest borrow readings. Any short seller borrowing Toyota shares through that date owed a dividend-in-lieu payment to the lender, a cost that sits on top of the rising cost to borrow. That combination likely accelerated the tightening dynamic.
Toyota's own registration data tells a different story from the shorts. Traficom data shows Finnish new car registrations reached 1,687 vehicles in August 2026, the largest August on record since 2014, per ORTEX Alt Data. Finnish registrations for the current quarter (July to August, two of three months in) are running 65.5% above the same period last year.
New battery-electric registrations in Finland were up 1,682% year on year in August, from a low base. Ireland posted a record August for new car licensings as well, at 1,646 vehicles, the largest since 2014.
None of the registration datasets covering Toyota have been shown to lead the company's reported revenue figures in out-of-sample testing. They are colour on volume, not a forecast of the print. Earnings are scheduled for 30 October, 30 days away.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open TM on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
