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RGC short sellers who retreated last week have returned. Estimated shares short jumped 35% in a single day to 826,405 on October 15, reversing the week's earlier decline. At the same time, options traders are still buying calls aggressively, and the borrow market has tightened again.
Earlier this week, short interest fell sharply. On October 13 it hit a local low near 576,000 shares. By October 15, it had climbed back to 826,405, a 35% single-day rise. That puts the one-month change at roughly 90%. The stock gained 17% on October 15 alone and is up 66% over the past month. Shorts are re-entering into a strongly rising stock, which raises the cost of being wrong.
The borrow market reflects that pressure. Availability has tightened to 24.4%, meaning roughly one share remains available to borrow for every four already lent out. That is down from 40.4% on October 13, when the borrow briefly loosened. Cost to borrow stands at 319.5%, up 82% over the past week. It has held between 300% and 355% for six consecutive weeks, making RGC one of the most expensive shorts on the exchange.
The options market is pointing the other direction. The put-call ratio on October 15 was 1.31, nearly 2.5 standard deviations below the 20-day mean of 2.22. September and early October saw PCRs above 2.4. The shift that began on October 14 has held. Against a 52-week range of 0.82 to 4.20, a reading of 1.31 sits firmly in call-dominant territory. The stock's 17% single-day move on October 15 appears to have sustained the appetite for upside exposure rather than dampened it.
The ORTEX short score sits at 65.7. The utilization rank is in the 4th percentile, meaning almost no other stock in the database has a tighter lending pool relative to its history.
Two forces are now pulling against each other in real time: short sellers adding positions and options traders buying calls. The next flashpoint is earnings, due on October 28. The stock has moved 13% lower and 4% higher on the two most recent prints.
Data summary
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open RGC 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.
