Boqii Holding Limited enters the week with a striking split: short sellers are quietly unwinding positions, yet the cost of borrowing the stock remains some of the most expensive in the market.
Short interest has more than halved over the past week. It fell 37.5% on the week to roughly 65,500 shares, representing just under 1.9% of free float. The retreat is sharp — yet the context matters. A month ago, short interest was barely a fraction of current levels. It multiplied nearly 8-fold during April, peaking around 260,000 shares on April 22 before sellers began covering. That month-long build-and-unwind cycle is the defining feature of BQ's positioning right now. The short score has settled at 53.6, down from a recent peak of 64.5 on April 24 — still elevated mid-range, but clearly off the highs.
The borrow market, however, has not relaxed at the same pace. Cost to borrow is running near 38%, which is actually the lowest level of the past six weeks — it touched 50% in late March — but still firmly in expensive territory for a sub-$3M market cap stock. Availability is ample at 317% of outstanding short interest, meaning there is no squeeze pressure in the lending pool. The combination of high cost and wide availability points to a market that remains wary of this name, even as active short positions decline. A utilisation level near 28% further reinforces that the lending market has plenty of room before shorts face any mechanical pressure to cover.
The stock itself has had a good run. It closed at $0.82, up 9.2% on the week and 12.4% over the past month. That price action likely accounts for some of the short covering — shorts who built positions in April are sitting on losses as the stock recovered. Peer performance has been mixed to negative: GMEX fell 5.6% on the week, BRLT dropped 7.7%, and WOOF slipped 2.4%. BQ's outperformance against its correlated peer group stands out, though correlations across this group are relatively low, capping at 42%.
Institutional ownership is thin. Total reported holders number just seven, with Merchant Tycoon Limited the largest at 2.4% of shares. Two individuals — Hao Liang and Yingzhi Tang — added positions as of March 18, each taking meaningful stakes for the size of the company. Whether these represent strategic accumulation or opportunistic buying around the April volatility is unclear from the data alone.
The next earnings event is confirmed for May 29. The last print on March 16 saw the stock fall 4.6% the following day and slide 20% over the subsequent five days — a notably weak reaction. The historical data includes a dramatic 230% single-day move in September 2025, a reminder that at this market cap, event-driven swings can be outsized in either direction. With earnings three weeks out and short interest declining, the setup heading into May 29 will be worth monitoring — particularly whether the April short-building pattern re-emerges ahead of the release.
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