GLD shorts hold near record highs as gold slides 7% in a month

Short sellers have maintained their heaviest position in GLD in at least a year, with 18.84 million shares short as of October 29. That figure is roughly double where it stood just a week earlier, a move the ORTEX data puts at 5.5 standard deviations above GLD's typical weekly change over the past year.

The borrow market tells the same story. As recently as October 22, availability sat above 500%, meaning lenders held more than five times as many shares available as were already borrowed. By October 29 that figure had compressed to 59%, the tightest reading of the past 52 weeks. The cost to borrow has moved with it, reaching 0.69%, up 88% over the week. Both metrics confirm the same thing: a large volume of new short positions was established in a very short window, and the lending pool absorbed almost all of it.

The ORTEX short score captures the same shift. On October 22 it sat at 39.0. By October 29 it had climbed to 56.5, a gain of more than 17 points in seven sessions. That is not a gradual drift; it reflects the composite signal responding to a rapid, broad-based tightening of borrowing conditions alongside accelerating short demand.

Options positioning adds a different angle. The put/call ratio has drifted below its 20-day average, closing at 0.48 against a mean of 0.50, about one standard deviation below. That is the opposite of a defensive setup: call open interest is running relatively heavy despite the ETF falling 3% on the day and nearly 7% over the past month to $355.78. The divergence between the options market's relatively relaxed tone and the borrow market's urgency is the week's central tension for GLD.

The price action frames both signals. GLD has shed 3.5% in a single session and 7.1% over the past month. Short interest at its current level was being built into a falling market, which removes the mechanical squeeze pressure that would apply to a crowded short on a rising stock. With availability at its lowest point of the year and borrow costs still rising, the degree to which further price moves alter those dynamics is the data series to follow.