Every share available to lend on USO has been borrowed. The lending pool has been at zero availability for five consecutive trading days. Short interest now stands at 104% of float, a level that points to heavy use of synthetic shorts alongside direct borrowing.
Availability has dropped to 0%. There is nothing left in the lending pool. This is the tightest the borrow market has been in the past 52 weeks — and it has held there since May 5.
Short interest jumped 16% in a single session on May 11. It now sits at 104.4% of free float. That figure exceeding 100% is significant. It means short sellers are not relying solely on borrowed shares. Synthetic exposure via options or swaps accounts for the excess.
The put/call ratio reinforces this. USO's PCR stands at 1.67, above its 20-day mean of 1.55. The z-score of 1.40 is elevated. Options markets are skewed bearish — puts outweigh calls by a wide margin.
Cost to borrow has moved in the opposite direction from what the tight availability would imply. CTB hit a recent peak of 14.6% APR on May 5. It has since fallen sharply — down 53% in a week to 6.76% as of May 11.
That divergence is unusual. Availability at 0% typically keeps borrow costs high. The CTB decline alongside a full lending pool suggests new supply entered the market even as new borrowing demand appeared. Short interest rose on the same day CTB fell, which points to lenders releasing shares into a pool that was immediately snapped up.
The ORTEX short score sits at 71.7 out of 100 — firmly in elevated territory and broadly stable over the past two weeks.
The key tension here is between an exhausted lending pool and a CTB that has eased sharply. Watch whether the borrow cost stabilises or resumes its climb. If new supply dries up and demand holds, the current CTB level is likely to move higher again.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open USO 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.
