BillionToOne is sending mixed signals. The cost to borrow has crashed 79% in a week. Yet short positions are rising again — and options traders are the most bearish they've been in months.
CTB peaked above 210% in mid-April. As of May 12, it sits at 26.9%. That's an 85% collapse from the month's high.
The lending market has loosened considerably. Availability has opened up after weeks of extreme tightness — the borrow pool ran at full capacity every single day from early April through May 6. That pressure is now easing.
The ORTEX short score reflects the shift. It stood at 84.5 on May 1. It has fallen to 71.3. Still elevated, but the acute squeeze risk is fading.
Despite cheaper borrows, short interest ticked up 11% on May 12 alone — back to 1.51 million shares. That's after a sharp week-on-week decline of 25%, suggesting some covering occurred earlier, only to reverse.
The pattern is consistent with shorts re-entering as borrow costs fall. When CTB was above 100%, holding a short position was expensive. At 26.9%, the carry cost drops dramatically.
The put/call ratio hit 1.04 on May 12. The 20-day mean is 0.65. That's a z-score of 2.69 — the most bearish options positioning in months.
The stock dropped 11% on May 12 after a 17.9% gain over the prior week. The put activity looks like hedging against that reversal — or a bet that the selloff has further to run.
Guggenheim raised its price target to $120 on May 13, maintaining a Buy. JP Morgan lifted its target to $125 last week, also maintaining Overweight. BTIG trimmed to $130 but kept its Buy.
The mean analyst target sits at $117.71. With the stock at $94.23, that implies roughly 25% upside to consensus. Earnings are scheduled for June 9 — likely the next major catalyst.
What to watch: Whether the short re-entry accelerates now that borrow is cheap, and how options positioning evolves into the June earnings date.
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