SEI shorts hold firm as stock drops 19% in a week

Solaris Energy Infrastructure enters earnings week with short sellers sitting on one of the most heavily shorted positions in the energy services sector. Short interest in the stock is running at 33.9% of the free float, a level that has been remarkably stable over the past month even as the share price collapsed beneath it.

The position has barely moved despite the carnage. Short interest is essentially unchanged on the week, down just 0.03%, and has crept up only about 5.6% over the past month. That means bears built their position largely before the decline and have not rushed to cover despite a 18.6% weekly drop to $63.34. The stock has now fallen 9% over the past month. Director AJ Teague made two open-market purchases in September, picking up 7,800 shares at around $64.25 and $64.21 for a combined outlay of roughly $501,000, with no 10b5-1 plan attached. Those trades now sit underwater.

The borrow market tells a nuanced story. Availability has tightened considerably over recent weeks, dropping to 49% from readings above 100% in mid-September, meaning roughly one share is still available for every two already lent out. Cost to borrow, however, remains low at 0.63%, down slightly on the week. That combination suggests shorts are well-entrenched rather than under pressure: availability has tightened, but not so severely that new positions become expensive or technically difficult to maintain. With a days-to-cover reading of 6.19 days per the most recent FINRA fortnightly data, unwinding the short book in an orderly fashion would take meaningful time. Options positioning sits on the bullish side of neutral, with the put/call ratio at 0.155, below its 20-day average of 0.18, though the z-score of minus 0.65 makes this a mild rather than extreme read.

The Street has moved firmly in the other direction from the shorts. Morgan Stanley lifted its price target to $102 on October 21, maintaining its Overweight rating, the latest in a run of upgrades and target raises that spans back through Barclays to $116 and Citigroup to $100 in late September. The consensus target stands at $103.91 against a current price of $63.34, implying roughly 64% upside by the Street's collective math. The bull case rests on Power Solutions, where the company reported $75.7 million in Q2 revenue, beating projections by 35.7% and growing 53% sequentially. The bear case focuses on Logistics Solutions, where annualised EBITDA per deployed system has fallen 14.3% year-over-year and further sequential system declines were flagged in guidance. The PE multiple has compressed about 6 points over 30 days to 20.4x, while EV/EBITDA has eased to 5.9x. The short-score factor rank sits in the 4th percentile, reflecting the heavy short positioning.

Two activist holders remain on the 13D register, though both have been reducing. J Turbines filed a 13D/A showing its stake fell from 13.4% to 3.1%, while KTR Management trimmed from 6.1% to 3.94%. Both remain above zero but have exited the 5% disclosure threshold zone. As always with 13D/G filings, stakes are as last disclosed and further reductions below 5% may go unreported. BlackRock is the largest institutional holder at 12.2% of shares, after adding nearly 3.9 million shares as of its last September 30 filing. Wikipedia attention for the stock is running at a z-score of 4.9 against its own 90-day history, an unusually sharp spike in retail interest coinciding with the price decline.

Quarterly results are due October 30, nine days away. The two most recent earnings events produced a mixed reaction: a 4.3% gain on the day in August 2026 and a 14.3% drop in July 2026. The week-five return after that July print was minus 18.7%, a drawdown sequence that rhymes with the current week's move. With short interest locked at one-third of the float and targets clustered well above the current price, the gap between where analysts and short sellers think this stock belongs is the defining tension heading into the print.