Bears Pile Into Grindr, Cerebras as HTZ Borrow Costs Surge

Short sellers sharpened their bets across several notable names this week. The biggest mover was GRND: Grindr's short interest jumped to 21.7% of free float, up 8 percentage points in seven days. That is one of the largest weekly increases among stocks with market caps above $500M.

CBRS, the newly listed Cerebras Systems, also saw shorts build. SI climbed to 20.4% of float, up 4.6 points on the week. The AI chip company has attracted sceptics since its IPO, and that pressure is not easing.

LQDA (Liquidia Corporation) added 8.2 points to reach 26.7% of float. The pharmaceutical firm remains in active litigation over its inhaled treprostinil drug, which is drawing bears in size.

On the cost-to-borrow front, HTZ stands out. Hertz Global carries a borrow rate above 116% APR with 73% of float shorted and zero shares available to borrow. That combination makes a squeeze mechanically possible, though expensive supply keeps most retail traders away.

WOLF (Wolfspeed) holds the top spot for sheer short interest size. 88% of its free float is shorted. The semiconductor name is down sharply over three months and EPS momentum is deeply negative.

EVCM (EverCommerce) carries the highest ORTEX short score in the dataset at 96.9. With a 91% cost to borrow and less than 0.4% of shares available, this mid-cap software stock is heavily squeezed from both sides.

NVDA and TSLA remain lightly shorted at 1.3% and 2.6% of float respectively, despite heavy social media chatter around Elon Musk's political spending and its potential effect on Tesla brand loyalty.