Bears Pile Into CoreWeave and Hertz

Short sellers added to positions in CoreWeave this past week. SI as a % of free float climbed 3.6 points to 24.8%. The AI cloud company remains highly watched heading into a busy earnings period for big tech.

Hertz stays a bear favourite. SI sits at 72.3% of free float, with zero shares available to borrow and a cost to borrow of 28%. That combination signals a very crowded, expensive short.

Lucid Group also saw short interest edge higher, up 1.9 points to 64.7% of free float in seven days. Availability is near zero. US plug-in vehicle registrations hit a four-year July low of 21,482 units, according to ORTEX Alt Data. That weakness in EV demand gives bears more reason to stay short.

Wolfspeed carries 83.8% SI of free float, with 9.6 days to cover. The semiconductor name remains one of the most heavily shorted mid-caps in the US.

1-800-Flowers.com has 78.4% SI of free float and 25 days to cover, an extreme reading that leaves it exposed to a short squeeze if sentiment shifts.

On the Russell 2000 radar, Vaxcyte sits at a boundary point. It is 0.5% below the Russell 2000 exit line, which could force index-related flows if the stock moves before the 30 October cut-off.

Wikipedia page views for CGDG and JTEK ran 10 standard deviations above their own histories last week, per ORTEX Alt Data, pointing to an unusual spike in retail attention to both ETFs.