Faraday Future Intelligent Electric heads into its May 8 earnings release with the borrow market near its tightest point of the year and short sellers sitting on a 35% float short position, even as the stock fell 14% on the week to $0.33.
The lending picture is striking. Availability of shares to borrow has compressed to just 2.7% of short interest — meaning for every 37 shares already lent out, only one remains available. That is close to fully exhausted, with the 52-week floor close at hand. Cost to borrow is running at 13.5%, up roughly 9% on the week, its highest level in a month. The combination signals that demand for short exposure has not let up despite the week's sharp price decline: short interest edged up a fraction on the day to 35.2% of the free float, and is up about 8.5% over the past month. Put differently, the bears are not covering — if anything they are adding.
The ORTEX short score reinforces that picture. It has held in a narrow band around 74 for the past two weeks, a persistently elevated reading that places the stock in the top percentile for short-side pressure. What is notable is the stability of that score: even as price recovered 42% over the past month (before this week's reversal), the short score barely moved, suggesting conviction on the short side has not been shaken by intermittent rallies.
Options tell a different story. The put/call ratio is just 0.10 — sitting near its 52-week low of 0.095 and well below the 20-day average of 0.12. That means options traders are overwhelmingly positioned in calls rather than puts. The divergence between near-exhausted borrow availability and call-heavy options positioning is the central tension heading into Thursday's print: short sellers are dug in via the stock-loan market, while speculative call buyers appear to be wagering on an upside catalyst.
That catalyst hope may be tied to the company's recent news flow. Faraday Future announced plans this week to upgrade its FX Super One MPV to an 800V architecture or pivot toward an AIHER hybrid model — pausing the original 400V project. The company also reported 46 EAI robot sales in April and launched the BIBS-FF AI and Robotics Institute in Omaha. The pivot away from pure EV toward AI/robotics branding has been the recurring thread in weekly updates from Co-CEO YT Jia. Whether that narrative can move the needle with institutional holders — BlackRock and Vanguard both added meaningfully in Q1, taking their stakes to 3.8% and 3.6% respectively — remains to be seen.
The one prior earnings reaction in the dataset offers limited comfort to either camp. The March 31 print produced a -1.6% one-day move, followed by a -12% five-day drift. The May 8 release is therefore less about whether the company has found a growth story and more about whether the AI/robotics pivot is generating any revenue, and whether the borrow market tightens further or finally begins to ease.
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