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Short interest in HIFS has pushed to a fresh high with earnings due tomorrow, and the borrow market has tightened back to near-critical levels after a brief recovery earlier last week.
SI now stands at 15.1% of the free float, up 10.2% week on week and 25.9% over the past month. That is the highest reading since late September, and it marks an acceleration from the 6.7% weekly gain reported in Friday's note. Bears have continued adding into the Q3 print rather than covering. The ORTEX short score is 77.6, steady at that level all week and placing the stock's short-side pressure among the most extreme in the market.
The more urgent development is in the lending pool. Availability, which had recovered to around 17% on October 15, has collapsed back to 1.81% as of October 16. That means roughly one share remains available to borrow for every 55 already lent out. Cost to borrow is 1.99%, up from below 0.4% as recently as October 8. The factor score for availability ranks in the first percentile, confirming this is not a routine tightening.
The sequence over the past ten days tells the story clearly. Availability was near zero for most of the week of October 6 to 10, touching a 52-week minimum of 0.06%. It recovered briefly mid-week before draining again heading into the earnings release.
Two things have moved since the October 17 notes. First, SI has increased further: the 14.9% reading cited on Friday has risen to 15.1%. Second, availability has collapsed again after its partial recovery. The borrow market is now tighter than it was when Friday's trader note was published, not looser.
HIFS reports Q3 results tomorrow, October 20. The last two quarterly prints produced a 1-day move of +0.8% in April and -3.4% in July, with the July result extending to -7.5% over five days. Short sellers have materially increased their position since that July print.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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