ABTS heads into its May 7 earnings report in an unusual position: short sellers have been rapidly unwinding positions even as the stock falls sharply — a divergence that makes the lending market worth watching closely.
The most striking move this week is in short interest. Estimated shares short collapsed by 80% over the past week, dropping from roughly 78,000 shares in mid-April to just 13,300 by April 29. That brings SI as a percentage of free float down to just 0.56% — a level too small to tell a crowded-short story. The unwind appears orderly rather than panicked; there is no sign of a squeeze event driving it.
What remains elevated is the cost of borrowing. Despite the short interest retreat, cost to borrow is still running at 47.2% annualised — expensive by any measure. That's down sharply from peaks above 115% in early April, but the persistence of elevated borrow costs even as short positions are being closed out suggests the lending pool remains thin. Availability has loosened alongside the short interest drop: with fewer shares actually borrowed, the ratio of available supply to outstanding short interest has improved materially from the near-fully-used conditions seen through late March and early April, when availability was at its tightest. The ORTEX short score has eased to 53.5 from a recent peak near 64, reflecting the unwind in progress.
The price action tells a harder story. ABTS has lost 42% over the past month and closed at $1.11 on April 29 — down 8% on the day and 13% on the week. Close peers have had a rough week too: REKR fell 14%, PONY dropped 12%, and AIRE lost a striking 43% — suggesting broad pressure across small-cap application software names rather than anything company-specific at ABTS. VRNS bucked the trend, rising 9% on the week, underlining how selective the tape has been.
The ownership picture adds context. A single individual, Conglin Deng, appears twice in the top-holder list — holding approximately 19% of shares through one vehicle and a smaller residual stake through another, alongside a disclosed reduction of roughly 408,000 shares. Empery Asset Management holds around 7.3% of shares as of March-end. This is a tightly held, micro-cap name where institutional activity from even one holder can move reported figures materially. The only recent insider transaction on file is a CEO share award of 40,000 shares at zero cost in April — a non-cash grant rather than an open-market purchase.
With earnings confirmed for May 7, the question is whether the borrow market tightens again as that date approaches. The last four earnings events produced one-day moves ranging from -6% to +3%, with five-day drifts consistently more negative — the largest being a -15% five-day slide after December 2025 results. Cost to borrow and the direction of short interest in the days immediately before the release are the metrics to track.
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