SoFi Technologies enters the final stretch before its October 26 earnings with short sellers at their most committed in months and the borrow market tightening rapidly, even as options traders remain surprisingly calm.
The short positioning has accelerated since our note last week. Short interest has climbed to 16.5% of free float, up from 15.1% on September 22 and now representing 199 million shares. That is a 10.5% rise week-on-week, the sharpest weekly move in the data window. The trajectory is clear: shorts dipped toward 169 million shares through mid-August, rebuilt steadily, then jumped by roughly 13 million shares between September 22 and 23 alone. The ORTEX short score has followed, reaching 68.1 on September 29, its highest reading in at least six weeks and placing the stock in the bottom 7th percentile of the broader universe on this measure. Bear conviction is no longer quietly firming; it is accelerating.
Borrow conditions reflect that acceleration. Availability has tightened sharply this week, dropping from around 124% to 94%, the tightest level in the 30-day window and well below the 160%-plus readings seen in mid-September. That still means there are more shares available to borrow than are currently borrowed, so the market is not yet in a true squeeze configuration. But the direction of travel has changed meaningfully in a matter of days. Cost to borrow has edged up alongside, reaching 0.53% from 0.37% a week ago, still low in absolute terms but up nearly 13% on the week and 19% over the past month. Options positioning, however, tells a different story: the put/call ratio sits at 0.44, almost exactly in line with its 20-day average of 0.44 and carrying a z-score near zero. The stock is down 7.3% on the week and 11.9% over the past month to $15.91, but options traders are not pricing in unusual downside protection.
The Street is divided, and that division is the clearest framing for where SOFI sits. Loop Capital initiated with a Hold and a $22 target on September 9. Scotiabank launched with a Sector Outperform and a $25 target on September 2. Both initiations place targets meaningfully above the current price, and the consensus mean target of $20.35 implies roughly 28% upside from here. But that consensus coexists with a Morgan Stanley Underweight and a $15 target, essentially at the current price, and with Mizuho cutting its target from $29 to $22 after last quarter's lighter-than-expected second-quarter guide. The bull case rests on SoFi's 40% member growth, 53% lending ANR growth, and firm FY26 guidance of $4.655 billion in revenue and $0.60 EPS, all without assuming rate cuts. The bear case focuses on the deteriorating Technology Platform segment, where ANR fell 27% in Q1, and on the stock's dependence on a narrow set of lending and capital-markets drivers. The analyst recommendation divergence factor score ranks in the 91st percentile, meaning the dispersion of views on SoFi is extreme relative to the broader universe. The price-to-book multiple has compressed nearly 0.23 points over the past 30 days to 1.63, moving in the same direction as the stock.
FDIC call report data tracked by the ORTEX Alt Data layer shows SoFi's insured bank charter has posted nine consecutive quarters of rising total assets, reaching $56.8 billion as of the April 2026 period, and nine consecutive quarters of rising total deposits, which reached $46.8 billion over the same stretch. The FDIC series has not yet been tested as a leading indicator against SoFi's reported figures, so it cannot be treated as a forward signal for the October print. It does, however, confirm the deposit-gathering trajectory that underpins the bull case for lending growth.
Insider activity is routine rather than newsworthy. September trades were dominated by tax-withholding transactions on September 15 and two planned open-market sales by the CTO and an EVP on September 21, both executed under 10b5-1 plans. Net insider activity over the past 90 days is a modest negative of 51,000 shares. There is nothing here that shifts the story in either direction. Among institutional holders, BlackRock added 2.9 million shares through August and Vanguard Capital added 1 million, while Goldman Sachs Asset Management added 9.6 million shares through August, a notable build. D.E. Shaw cut its position by 28 million shares through June, a significant reduction filed some months back. No 13D activist is on the register.
With earnings on October 26, the question worth watching is whether the pace of short-interest building continues or stalls as the date approaches, and whether the tightening availability market becomes a constraint on bears looking to add further before the print.
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