NVDL Borrow Costs Rise 47% as Short Sellers Pull Back

NVDL, the GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF, enters the new week with a curious divergence: short sellers have been quietly reducing positions while the cost of borrowing shares has climbed sharply, making the bears who remain decidedly more committed.

The borrowing story is the most notable data point right now. The cost to borrow has risen 47% over the past month, reaching 9.18% APR — more than half a percentage point above the prior week's level of roughly 8.35%. That climb has come despite a meaningful reduction in the number of shares short, which have fallen 10% over the same period to around 8.83 million. Higher borrowing costs alongside a shrinking short book suggest the lending pool has tightened even as demand has eased. Availability remains constrained — with the lending market running at 91% of capacity as of April 30, only roughly one share remains available for every ten already lent out. The 52-week peak hit full constraint at 100%, a level touched multiple times in March and April, so the current reading represents a modest loosening but not a genuine reopening of the borrow market.

Options positioning shifted more defensive on Friday. The put/call ratio moved to 0.65 — above its 20-day average of 0.59 and running about 1.6 standard deviations high. That is not yet at an extreme, with the 52-week peak sitting at 0.93, but the directional move is worth noting. For a leveraged ETF whose entire premise is bullish NVDA exposure, a put/call ratio inching higher implies a segment of NVDL holders are paying up for protection rather than adding to upside exposure. The week's price action provides context: NVDL fell nearly 10% across the five sessions ending May 1, closing at $92.22, even as the underlying NVDA held up more constructively.

The ORTEX short score of 70.1 is elevated and has been grinding higher through April, moving from 69.7 in late April to its current level. For a leveraged ETF structure, a score this high is not unusual given the mechanics of daily rebalancing and the persistent demand for borrow around such instruments — but the slow drift upward does reinforce that the bears who remain in this name are not retreating fast. Officially reported short interest from FINRA (as of the April 15 settlement) put shares short at approximately 9.0 million with days-to-cover near 1.2 — a very low cover ratio reflecting the high daily volume that characterises leveraged ETFs.

No analyst coverage, earnings events, or fundamental valuation multiples are applicable to this instrument — NVDL is a rules-based ETF with no earnings, no balance sheet, and no analyst price targets. The entire investment and trading thesis is a function of NVDA's daily moves, amplified by 2x leverage. NVDA itself closed at $198.45 as of the latest reading, and the relationship between NVDA's daily trajectory and NVDL's weekly performance is direct: the 27% monthly rebound in NVDL through April mirrors a material recovery in the underlying.

The setup heading into the week is therefore less about NVDL itself and more about what NVIDIA delivers — whether through macro sentiment around AI spending, any commentary on export restrictions, or the next scheduled earnings event — and whether the options market's modestly defensive lean proves prescient or fades back toward the year's more bullish low of 0.42.