Bears Pile In: Homebuilder and AI Chip Shorts Jump

Short sellers stepped up pressure on a homebuilder and an AI chip maker this week, while Hertz remains a crowd favourite for bears.

Dream Finders Homes saw the sharpest move. Short interest hit 33.8% of float, up 26% in a week. That is now a record high for the stock per ORTEX data. Cost to borrow sits at just 0.69%, so the trade remains cheap to put on.

Cerebras Systems, the AI chip start-up that listed earlier this year, also attracted fresh shorts. SI climbed to 19.8% of float, up 4.6 percentage points in seven days. Bears appear sceptical of valuations at a $12.3bn market cap for a company yet to turn a consistent profit.

Talen Energy is another notable mover. SI jumped from 5.5% to 10.7% of float over the same period. The power generator has been tied to data-centre demand narratives, and the doubling of short positioning suggests not everyone is convinced the story holds.

On the squeeze side, Sportradar is flashing warning signs for shorts. Utilisation hit 100% and availability dropped to just 9.5% of short interest. That combination leaves little room to add to short positions and raises squeeze risk.

Hertz sits at 73.4% SI of float, with a cost to borrow of 161.6%. Availability is effectively zero. It remains one of the most extreme short positions in the US market.

Index radar adds a wrinkle: Corteva's MSCI World deletion probability jumped to 77% overnight, pointing to potential $555M of forced selling on November 30 if confirmed on November 11.