EV Bears Dominate as October Closes

Halloween brought no treats for electric vehicle stocks. Short sellers, options traders, and real-world registration data all pointed in the same direction on Saturday morning.

EV Sector Under Pressure

The bearish case is unusually well-supported. US new electric vehicle registrations dropped 29% year-on-year in August 2026, falling to 6,635 from 9,347 a year earlier, according to ORTEX Alt Data tracking public registration records. Options put volume clustered into the November 6 expiry on EV names. Short interest in Lucid Group sits at 65.1% of free float. Hertz is at 73.5%, with a cost to borrow of 150%. Wolfspeed is the extreme case: 88.6% of free float shorted and zero shares available to borrow.

Polestar reports November 5. Dutch car registrations, a leading indicator for Polestar revenue with a strong 60-day lead, are running 37% below the same quarter last year.

Analyst Upgrades Lift Financials

JP Morgan swept through the US banking sector on Friday. State Street received a target lift to $192.50 from $187.50. Northern Trust moved to $191.50 from $185. Both remain Holds. Merck got a $10 target increase to $175 with a Buy rating. Republic Services saw its target raised $20 to $265.

Index Radar: Russell 2000 Rank Day

Today is the rank date for the Russell 2000 December review. Two names saw deletion odds jump sharply overnight. Life Time Group Holdings moved from 40% to 90% deletion probability, carrying $901M of estimated forced selling. UMB Financial climbed from 55% to 90%, with $1.3B of selling across 15.4 days of volume. The announcement is due November 13.

On the addition side, Moderna stands out in the MSCI World November review. It sits 75.4% above the entry line, with an 88% probability of addition and $5.9B of forecast buying flows. The announcement is expected November 11.