Why this matters — Three distinct ORTEX data streams have aligned on PUK within days of each other. Short interest, borrow utilisation, and options positioning are all flashing bearish signals — with an earnings event due 28 April.
Short interest — sharp drop flags a position shift. Estimated shares short fell 33.7% in a single session on 24 April, to 1.13M from 1.70M. That is the sharpest single-day decline on record. Yet the drop appears to reflect a reduction in gross positions rather than a clear-out: utilisation remained near its 52-week high simultaneously.
Utilisation — near-maxed borrowing. Utilisation hit 98.58% on 24 April. It has been above 80% every day since 17 April and sat at 100% for most of March and early April. Almost all available borrow inventory is in use. That means new short positions are increasingly difficult to open.
Options — put/call ratio surges. The put/call ratio reached 0.92 on 24 April. The 20-day mean is 0.36. That puts the reading 2.56 standard deviations above the mean. Options traders have rotated sharply into defensive positioning over a five-day window, with the PCR roughly doubling from 0.53 on 22 April.
PUK's short score ranks in the 93rd percentile on a 52-week basis, and the days-to-cover rank sits at the 81st percentile. The utilisation rank is also at the 81st percentile. Earnings are confirmed for 28 April — the convergence in all three signals over the five days immediately preceding that event is notable. BlackRock added 34.6M shares in the most recent reporting period, becoming the largest known institutional holder at 8.46% of shares.
Utilisation was at or near 100% throughout March and early April 2026. Cost to borrow peaked at 32% in late March before compressing sharply to 6.4% by 24 April. That compression — combined with the current utilisation level — mirrors a borrow-supply squeeze: fewer shares available forces higher utilisation even as gross short positions decline.
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