Short Sellers Pile Into AI and Meme Names

Short interest across US equities shows fresh movement as of 19 October, with bears adding to positions in AI infrastructure plays and retail-favorite names while covering hard in healthcare.

CoreWeave saw one of the week's biggest jumps. Short interest climbed to 22.2% of free float, up 3.1 percentage points in seven days. Sceptics appear unconvinced by the AI cloud buildout story, even as NVIDIA popped after hours on news that SpaceX is adding 200,000 chips per month.

Chewy remains the most heavily shorted large-cap in the US market. Bears hold 89.7% of the free float, up another 2.5 points on the week.

Tesla shorts are remarkably quiet ahead of today's earnings. SI sits at just 2.5% of free float. ORTEX alt data shows German car registrations running 269% above year-ago levels, a dataset that leads Tesla revenue by 43 days. Analyst Gene Munster put SpaceX-Tesla merger odds at 95% overnight, adding noise to an already eventful print.

American Airlines short interest rose 2.2 points to 14.9% of FF. Bears are pressing as Iran tensions push oil prices higher.

On the other side, Medtronic saw the biggest short cover of the week. SI fell 5 points to 5.5% of free float. SMCI raised its revenue outlook after hours, lifting Dell and HPE in after-hours trade, a reminder that AI server demand keeps catching bears off guard.

LENZ retail attention hit 10 standard deviations above its own history on Wikipedia views as of 19 October, per ORTEX alt data.