Webull Shorts Build as CEO Trims Stake

BULL has fallen harder than the brokerage pack over the past week, with peers HOOD and COIN down 3.8% and 5.0% respectively against Webull's 7.3% drop to $5.47. Short interest at nearly 10% of free float is the most crowded reading among that peer group, with roughly 41.6 million shares short after a 29% build over the past month.

Despite the elevated short position, the borrow market tells a calmer story. Availability is extremely loose at roughly 1,965% of short interest, meaning there are nearly twenty shares available to borrow for every one currently lent out. Cost to borrow is just 0.40%, low by any measure. That combination points to a well-supplied lending pool rather than a market bracing for a squeeze, and the ORTEX short score of 50.3 sits squarely at the midpoint with little directional drift over the past two weeks.

The insider register adds a sharper edge to the picture. CEO Wang Anquan received 25 million shares in a conversion transaction on September 30, lifting his disclosed stake, but the 90-day net picture across the broader group is a net sale of roughly 375,000 shares worth approximately $3.1 million. President Anthony Denier has sold around 53,800 shares each month through a pre-arranged 10b5-1 plan, so those trades carry less signal. More pointed was a September 14 open-market sale by CFO Wang Haichen of 55,000 shares at $8.98, a discretionary transaction filed without a 10b5-1 declaration, executed as the stock was trading well above current levels. Options positioning offers little extra drama: the put/call ratio of 0.21 is marginally below its 20-day average of 0.22, unremarkable and slightly more tilted toward calls than usual.

Analyst coverage is thin and the most recent moves are now nearly three weeks old. Scotiabank upgraded to Sector Outperform on October 9, keeping its $9.00 target. Rosenblatt, the more consistent follower, trimmed its target from $15 to $12 on the same date while holding a Buy rating. The consensus mean target of $11.25 against a current price of $5.47 implies substantial upside on paper, but that gap has widened primarily because the stock has dropped sharply. The bull case rests on Q3 2025 momentum: 55% revenue growth, a 43% rise in client margin balances to $689 million, and a 23% adjusted operating margin. The bear case centres on crypto volume exposure, with Q4 estimates already cut roughly 30% following weakness in digital-asset trading, against a backdrop of lower volatility and declining interest rates that pressure the transaction-revenue model.

The October 30 print will test whether Webull's core equities and options franchise can hold enough volume to offset the crypto drag, and whether the margin structure that impressed analysts in Q3 can survive into a softer trading environment.