Bears Press HTZ and LCID as Shorts Unwind on Cruise Lines

Short sellers turned up the heat on car rental and EV names this week. Hertz Global Holdings tops the most-shorted list with 73.2% of its free float sold short. Its cost to borrow hit 164%, and zero shares are available to borrow. That is a trapped short book.

Lucid Group is a close second at 65.9% SI% of FF. Only 1.4% of the existing short interest has available shares to cover against. Bears are deeply committed but have little room to manoeuvre.

Biggest Mover of the Week

PROG Holdings saw the sharpest SI jump among mid-caps. Short interest rose 3.5 percentage points in seven days to 12.1% of free float. That is a meaningful shift for a $1.4B lease-to-own company.

Braveheart Bio also climbed fast, up 6.2 points to 42.7%, though its micro-cap status makes big percentage swings more common.

Bears Covering Cruise Lines

Norwegian Cruise Line saw the most notable short covering. SI% of FF dropped 2.1 points to 17.3% over the past week. At $8B market cap, that represents real volume returning to the other side.

Sabre Corporation shed nearly 2.9 points of short interest, falling to 7.8%. Travel tech names are seeing bears step back.

Tesla-SpaceX Chatter

News flow today centred on the proposed all-stock Tesla and SpaceX merger. One prominent analyst warned the 24% premium can quickly turn negative. Tesla's SI% of FF sits at a modest 2.6%. Short sellers are not positioned for a collapse, but social platforms are buzzing about the deal structure.

Celanese also saw significant short covering, down 2.98 points to 5.6%, as chemical sector sentiment shifted.