Bears Pile Into Small Caps as Chip Drama Rolls On

Short sellers stepped up pressure across several mid-cap names this week. Surrozen saw the sharpest move: its SI % FF jumped 10.5 percentage points in seven days to reach 35.4% as of 28 October. Grindr was not far behind, with short interest climbing 6.6 points to 20.5% of free float, while Liquidia rose 8.3 points to 26.8%.

EverCommerce holds the highest ORTEX short score among liquid names at 96.9. Its cost to borrow sits at 78%, with availability near zero. That combination makes a squeeze mechanically difficult.

In semiconductors, Wolfspeed remains the standout. Short interest sits at 88% of free float with zero availability. The stock has rallied 33% in three months, yet bears refuse to step back. Borrowing costs are cheap at under 2%, which has kept the trade crowded.

Intel crashed 23% overnight on earnings. Short interest was already edging down to 3.2%, from 3.5% a week ago. Bears had partly covered before the print. The DOJ probe and Chinese spy reports hitting NVIDIA are adding fresh pressure across the chip sector.

On the index front, today is the Russell 2000 December review ranking cut-off. Deletion odds for Viasat jumped overnight to 80%. A forced sale of $1.3 billion would follow a confirmed deletion, equal to 8.4 days of normal volume.