UNG, the United States Natural Gas Fund, enters mid-May with a notable unwinding of the bearish positioning that dominated April — short sellers have pulled back hard, and the borrow market has loosened considerably.
The pace of that retreat is the standout story this week. Short interest has collapsed roughly 46% over the past month, falling from around 5.3 million shares short in early April to just 2.85 million by May 12. As a percentage of the free float, shorts have dropped to 5.8% — down from peaks above 13% during the second week of April. In just the past week, short interest fell a further 12%. The message is clear: the wave of bearish conviction that built through late March and the first half of April has reversed sharply.
The borrow market is telling the same story of retreat, not pressure. Cost to borrow peaked above 6% in early April and has more than halved since, settling at 3.43% on May 12. Availability is now generous — at 353% of short interest, there is far more stock available to lend than there are shares currently borrowed. That compares to a 52-week utilization peak of 100%, and the current utilization reading of just 31%. The lending pool has gone from fully stretched to comfortably loose in six weeks. There is no squeeze dynamic here.
The ORTEX short score, which synthesizes lending pressure and positioning momentum, reflects the same cooling trend. It peaked at 63.6 on May 8 — a reading that signals elevated short-side attention — and has since slipped back to 53.7. That mid-level score is more consistent with a neutral-to-cautious stance than any aggressive conviction in either direction.
Options positioning has drifted modestly more defensive over the past two weeks, though not dramatically so. The put/call ratio is running at 0.34, marginally above its 20-day average of 0.32 by about one standard deviation. That is a far cry from its 52-week high of 0.98, and still deeply call-skewed overall — options market participants are broadly positioned for upside in the fund rather than further downside. The tilt toward calls is characteristic of a commodity ETF where participants use calls to capture a directional move in natural gas prices.
The fund itself closed at $10.91 on May 12, up around 2.5% on the week despite a 2.8% drop on the final day. The one-month gain is a modest 1.3%. The price history flagged in the data includes a 5% single-day move on May 8 — consistent with the kind of gas-price volatility the fund tracks — and a similar 5.4% move in late February. On the two prior occasions when quarterly reports triggered moves, the five-day reaction was positive both times, adding 12% and 2.8% respectively. There is no scheduled earnings event for this fund in the near term.
The institutional holder base is thin and lightly engaged — 61 holders in total, with Morgan Stanley and Arkadios Wealth Advisors the two largest at roughly 1.6% and 1.5% of shares respectively. Jane Street and Susquehanna are also present, consistent with a market-making and arbitrage audience rather than long-term capital. The Goldman Sachs position of 320,818 shares, as reported at end-Q1 2026, was unchanged from the prior period — a neutral signal.
What to watch next is whether the natural gas spot price extends the recent recovery that appears to have prompted the short covering, or whether renewed selling pressure rebuilds the borrow queue and nudges the short score back toward the 60+ level that marked April's peak bearishness.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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