CEL-SCI Corporation has entered a critical borrow squeeze. Short interest, cost to borrow, and availability have all moved to extreme levels simultaneously — with an earnings event tomorrow acting as the catalyst deadline.
Short interest hit 45.4% of free float on May 11. One month ago it sat below 5%. That's a 634% rise in shares short over 30 days.
The borrow market reflects that demand violently. Cost to borrow stood at ~4.5% APR in late April. It now prints at 428% APR — a 9,400% increase in one month.
Availability has collapsed in lockstep. The lending pool is essentially exhausted. With utilization at 98.52% — a 52-week high — fewer than 2 shares remain available for every 100 already lent out. That is one of the tightest borrow conditions visible in the market.
CVM shares closed at $1.41 on May 11. The stock is down 65% over the past month.
Short sellers began building aggressively around May 4, when shares short jumped from ~845K to over 1.1M in a single session. By May 7, the position had grown to 3.5M shares. The ORTEX short score reached 99.8 out of 100 on May 8 — the highest possible reading.
The price decline and the borrow surge are feeding each other. As the stock fell, more shorts entered. As more shorts entered, available borrow dried up. As borrow dried up, the cost to carry exploded.
CEL-SCI reports earnings on May 13. That timing matters enormously for anyone currently short.
With availability near zero and cost to borrow at 428% APR, exiting a short position quickly is genuinely difficult. The daily carry cost at current CTB is punishing. There are few shares left to borrow for new entrants.
The institutional holder base is thin. Only 27 holders are on record. Lincoln Alternative Strategies holds 6.9% of shares. Vanguard holds 3.5%. The CEO, Geert Kersten, added to his position in January at $5.26 — well above current levels.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open CVM on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
