QQQ has clawed back sharply from its April lows. The Invesco Nasdaq 100 ETF gained nearly 4% on the week, closing Tuesday at $707.24 — up more than 15% over the past month. Yet options traders are not celebrating as loudly as the price chart suggests.
The clearest signal of residual caution is in options positioning. The put/call ratio has climbed to 1.65, more than two standard deviations above its 20-day average of 1.53. That reading is the most defensive since the 52-week high of 1.86. It points to a market still buying downside protection even as the ETF rallies. The PCR has been trending higher all month — it was near 1.33 at the start of April — which suggests hedging demand has built steadily alongside the price recovery, not against it.
Short interest tells a different story, and the contrast matters. Bears have been covering aggressively. Shorts fell nearly 13% over the week to 9.4% of the float — down from a peak near 10% in early May. The one-day drop on May 12 alone was almost 7%. Cost to borrow remains minimal at 0.58%, and availability is not tight, with utilisation at 66% — well below last year's peak of 97%. There is no squeeze dynamic here. The short covering looks more like tactical position reduction after a sharp rally than a forced unwind under stress.
The ORTEX short score holds at 61, roughly in the middle of its recent range between 59 and 63. That level reflects a modestly elevated short interest backdrop — enough to keep the score above the midpoint — but no meaningful acceleration in fresh bearish positioning. The score has been range-bound for two weeks, suggesting shorts have neither rebuilt meaningfully nor retreated to panic-cover lows.
Institutional ownership is broad and diversified, as befits the world's most-traded tech ETF. Morgan Stanley remains the largest disclosed holder at 2.5% of shares, though it trimmed its position by 8.5 million shares in Q4 2025. Bank of America added 4.2 million shares over the same period, bringing its stake to 1.7%. The most recent quarterly data covers filings through March 2026, with Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs both reporting stable positions. No single holder dominates, and no dramatic institutional rotation is visible in the data.
Analyst price target data is not applicable here — the ETF does not carry a meaningful consensus target, and any historical data on record is too stale to be relevant. QQQ does not have an earnings calendar either, so the next near-term focus remains macro: rate expectations, Nasdaq component earnings revisions, and how far the month-long recovery run extends before options hedges are lifted or repriced.
What to watch: whether the put/call ratio begins to normalise as the rally ages, or whether it continues to track higher — a divergence between price and options sentiment that has defined this entire recovery.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open QQQ 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.
