Lucid Group enters the post-earnings period with shorts building steadily and its analyst base turning more cautious — a combination that keeps the stock under pressure at $6.25.
The borrow market is as tight as it gets. Availability has been effectively zero for weeks, with the lending pool fully exhausted — a condition that has persisted almost uninterrupted since late March. Cost to borrow climbed sharply this week, rising roughly 80% to 13%, though it remains well below the April peak above 33% when the borrow squeeze was at its most intense. Short interest is 14.4% of the free float, up about 4% on the week and nearly 8% over the past month. The ORTEX short score is 76.6, ranking in the 2nd percentile of the universe — meaning almost every stock in the market is less heavily shorted. With availability exhausted and short interest still climbing, any new position requires borrowing from existing holders rather than the lending pool, which is why the cost to borrow has been drifting back upward after its mid-April spike unwound.
Options positioning tells a slightly less extreme story. The put/call ratio is 1.40 — elevated in absolute terms, but actually a touch below its 20-day average of 1.50, producing a modestly negative z-score. That means options traders are no more defensive than usual, even as short sellers add. The PCR has compressed notably from the 1.68–1.71 range seen in mid-April, suggesting some of the options-market fear from the tariff-driven selloff has eased. The 52-week PCR range of 0.10 to 2.42 underlines how wide the sentiment swings have been on this name.
The Street moved firmly in one direction after yesterday's results. TD Cowen cut its target from $10 to $7 while keeping a Hold, and Benchmark downgraded outright from Buy to Hold — both actions filed within the past 24 hours. That leaves the analyst tally at just one Buy against eight Holds, with the mean target at $9.05. That is 45% above the current price, but the direction of travel matters more: targets have been sliding steadily, with TD Cowen alone having taken its number from $19 in mid-April to $10, then to $7 now. The bear case is hard to ignore — gross margins remain deeply negative, EV tax credit removal adds demand headwinds, and operating expenses for 2026 are still projected above $2 billion. The bull case rests on the Gravity SUV's larger addressable market and the mid-size platform due in the second half of 2026, which Lucid management frames as the real margin inflection point.
One institutional development stands out in the ownership data. Uber Technologies disclosed a holding of 37.8 million shares — a 24-million-share increase from its prior filing — representing just over 10% of Lucid's share count. That stake, built as part of Lucid's robotaxi partnership with Uber, gives the company a strategically aligned cornerstone investor alongside the Saudi Public Investment Fund's near-49% position. Together, those two holders control nearly 60% of shares outstanding, which concentrates the float considerably and helps explain why availability can reach zero: the effective borrowable pool is a fraction of total shares.
The next scheduled earnings date is June 4. Between now and then, the stock's path will likely be shaped by delivery update cadence, any Gravity production commentary, and whether borrowing costs stabilise or resume the climb seen in April.
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