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Nebius Group enters October with its stock up 5.3% on the week to $249.87, yet the short position remains stubbornly large and the analyst community is as divided as it has been all year.
Short interest has barely budged since the September note. At 46.9 million shares, the float-adjusted figure is 21.5%, up a fraction from last week's 21.2% reading. The position has stabilised well below August's peak of around 53 million shares, but there is no sign of meaningful covering. What has changed is the borrow environment. Availability has loosened considerably, now at 74.4% compared with 47% a week ago, meaning supply in the lending pool has opened up rather than tightened. Cost to borrow has fallen another 20% on the week to 0.56%, the lowest it has been in the past 30-day window. The ORTEX short score has held in a tight 68 to 68.7 range all month, essentially unchanged through the price rally. That combination, a large but stable short position, cheap and plentiful borrow, describes a short base that is sitting rather than pressing. Options positioning is equally neutral: the put/call ratio of 0.89 is almost exactly its 20-day average, with a z-score near zero. Neither the shorts nor the options market is loading up ahead of the November 12 earnings date.
The analyst picture is the most polarising element of the current setup. BNP Paribas upgraded to Outperform and raised its target from $260 to $399 on September 24, making it one of the most aggressive bull calls on the register. Truist initiated at Buy with a $355 target in early September, and William Blair added an Outperform initiation at the end of the month. Against that, Rothschild initiated with a Sell and a $84 target on September 21, a gap of more than $300 from the BNP view on a stock trading at $250. The mean analyst target of $283 sits only modestly above the current price, but that average is dragged down by the lone bear. The bull case rests on contracted backlog above $40 billion, Q2 revenue of $582 million representing 454% year-on-year growth, and a $17 billion Microsoft agreement. The bear case centres on capex guidance of $20 billion to $25 billion this year against revenue of only $3.0 billion to $3.4 billion, internal control concerns over fixed assets, and the concentration risk of more than 80% of backlog potentially tied to Microsoft and Meta. EPS momentum factor scores of 94 (30-day) and 99 (90-day) sit alongside a short score rank in the bottom 6th percentile of the universe, capturing the tension between improving earnings expectations and a large residual short base.
The ownership register carries one standout: NVIDIA holds a 9.3% passive stake as of its July filing, and Goldman Sachs disclosed 10.5% in August, up from 7.2% previously. Neither is an activist, and both stakes are as-last-disclosed around the 5% threshold, meaning either could have moved without further obligation to file. BlackRock added 1.6 million shares in the period to September 30, bringing its position to 4.2% of shares. Founder Arkady Volozh remains the largest individual holder at 10.7%, with a small reduction of 83,000 shares in the latest period. The more notable insider activity is from COO Nave Ophir, who sold roughly 403,000 shares across multiple tranches on October 5, for aggregate proceeds of around $94 million. All transactions were conducted under a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, which limits the signal value, but the scale is worth noting given the stock's run.
Post-earnings price reactions at Nebius have been dramatic. The August 12 print produced a 32% one-day gain and held a 16% five-day move. The prior quarter saw a 21% one-day drop followed by a 20% five-day recovery. With 36 days to the November 12 report, the setup is one where the market has a history of moving violently in both directions, and where the current short position of 21.5% of float means any surprise in either direction carries asymmetric potential from the covering dynamic alone.
The next clear catalyst is earnings on November 12, where the core questions will be whether the contracted backlog is converting to recognised revenue at the guided pace and whether the capital structure can absorb another round of capacity additions without equity dilution.
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