Trump Media & Technology Group enters October with short sellers quietly retreating, the lending market loosening, and options tilting slightly more defensive, all against a stock that has lost nearly a third of its value year to date.
The most notable shift in positioning is the sharp drop in short interest over the past month. Shares short have fallen roughly 21% since late August, coming down from around 17.5 million to just under 13.9 million. At 4.96% of the free float, the position is no longer particularly large by meme-stock standards, though it picked up about 1% over the past week, a minor rebuild after a sustained unwind. Borrow costs have also eased. The cost to borrow is now just 0.72%, down roughly 17% over the month and around 14% on the week, a low reading that signals no meaningful short squeeze pressure in the lending market. Availability confirms the picture: shares available to borrow now cover about 107% of short interest, up sharply from a 52-week low of 13.7%, and well above the mid-August levels when availability was closer to 50%. For a stock that has at times been a retail squeeze target, the current lending environment looks genuinely relaxed.
Options traders have nudged slightly more cautious this week, though the signal is modest. The put/call ratio is running at 0.64, about 1.4 standard deviations above its 20-day average of 0.60. That is not an alarm, the 52-week high is 1.43, well above current levels, but the direction of travel since mid-September is worth noting. From the start of the month through September 18, the ratio was consistently below 0.58. It has drifted higher since, suggesting some incremental demand for downside protection as the stock has slid 3% over the week to $9.10. For context, close peer , the ideologically adjacent PSQ Holdings, fell nearly 9% on the week, making DJT's decline look contained by comparison. and each dropped roughly 5% and 3% respectively.
There are no analyst ratings or price targets on file for DJT, which is not unusual for a politically polarising name with minimal sellside following. The ORTEX short score sits at 62.9, roughly flat over the past two weeks, placing the stock in a zone that reflects moderate bearish positioning rather than extreme crowding. The factor scores point in the same direction: the short score ranks in just the 10th percentile of the universe, meaning most stocks carry less bearish positioning, while the days-to-cover rank is at the 8th percentile. Neither screams a squeeze setup, but neither is the stock ignored by shorts either.
The ownership picture carries a detail worth flagging. Donald Trump's revocable trust remains the dominant holder at 41.3% of shares, a stake unchanged since at least June. BlackRock added nearly 4.9 million shares in the period ending August 31, lifting its holding to 13.1 million shares or 4.7% of the company, a notable passive accumulation. Yorkville Advisors, by contrast, cut 5 million shares in Q2 to bring its stake down to 2.3 million.
On the alt data side, Wikipedia pageviews for Trump Media are running more than two standard deviations below their own 90-day average as of early September, a sign that retail attention has cooled materially from prior peaks. The dataset carries no measured lead to revenue, so the reading is colour rather than signal, but the drop in attention aligns with the quieter trading environment.
The next earnings date is November 5. Given the stock fell 12.7% the day after its August print and slipped another 20.7% in the following week, that calendar mark is the most concrete catalyst on the horizon.
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