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FPX, the First Trust US Equity Opportunities ETF, heads into the new week with its two most notable signals pulling in opposite directions: options positioning remains intensely bullish, while borrowing costs have crept back to a six-week high.
The options market is the clearest signal here, and it remains stubbornly one-sided. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.0152, the lowest reading of the past 52 weeks and well below the 20-day mean of 0.112. That puts the PCR nearly a full standard deviation below its recent average, reflecting a market where call demand vastly outstrips any appetite for downside protection. This isn't a new development: the September 28 note flagged the same dynamic even as the borrow market was snapping back from its mid-September stress episode. Ten days on, the positioning hasn't shifted.
The borrow picture is a more complicated story. Availability is comfortable at 517%, meaning there are more than five shares available to lend for every one already borrowed, well above the 52-week low of 9.5% recorded when the borrow market tightened sharply in mid-September. Short interest itself remains minimal at just 0.21% of the float, down 22% over the past month as the positions built during the September stress episode continued to unwind. What is worth noting is that cost to borrow has climbed again: it rose to 2.70% on October 6, up 13% on the week and 64% over the past month. That is a notable move given how low the underlying SI is. It suggests some friction in the lending market even as headline availability looks loose, likely reflecting the small and specialised nature of the ETF's lending pool rather than any meaningful bearish conviction.
The ORTEX short score sits at 42, little changed over the past week and roughly in the middle of its recent range. It peaked at 46.9 in late September during the height of the borrow stress, and the reset to the low 40s is consistent with the broader unwind in short positioning. Combined score is 41.8, similarly benign. Neither reading signals an extreme in either direction.
The standout tension for the week ahead is whether the renewed drift higher in cost to borrow develops into a sustained trend or reflects nothing more than daily noise in a lightly traded lending pool. With availability still generous and short interest near a multi-month low, the borrow market is not signalling stress. The options market, for its part, has been unmoved by every twist in this story since at least mid-September, and the PCR at a fresh 52-week low is the number worth watching if sentiment eventually turns.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open FPX on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data and reviewed by the ORTEX team. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
