NXTG — the First Trust Indxx NextG ETF tracking next-generation telecom and 5G infrastructure — enters the week with a striking disconnect: short activity has exploded while the fund itself rallied nearly 19% over the past month.
Short interest jumped more than twelvefold over the past week. On May 5, estimated short shares numbered just 191,000. By May 12, they had climbed to 2,515 — a 1,206% weekly surge. In context, the actual float percentage remains microscopic at just 0.065% of free float. This is not a heavily shorted fund by any standard measure. The spike looks more like a technical artefact of ETF creation/redemption mechanics or a single institutional hedging position appearing in the data than a genuine directional short thesis building against the ETF.
The borrow market tells a more persistent story than the short-interest jump alone. Cost to borrow has been running at roughly 20–22% annualised for months — elevated for any ETF and well above what most passive funds attract. Despite the short-interest surge this week, availability remained exceptionally loose. The availability ratio dropped from over 9,000% earlier in the month to 1,241% on May 12, which still comfortably signals an ample lending pool with far more shares available than are currently borrowed. Borrow availability has tightened noticeably — down roughly 85% from its loosest reading earlier in May — but a reading above 1,000% remains in the "plentiful supply" range. Whatever is driving the elevated cost to borrow, it does not appear to be a shortage of lendable shares.
The fund's price action has been the dominant theme. NXTG gained 3.5% over the past week and nearly 19% over the past month, closing at $143.93 on May 12 before pulling back 1.7% on the day. That monthly move reflects the broader re-rating of 5G and next-generation communications infrastructure names — the ETF's underlying index holds companies across mobile networks, edge computing, and related buildout plays. The short score registered 40.2 on May 12, up from 36.3 a month ago — a modest rise that suggests slightly more bearish positioning sentiment, though still well within neutral territory and far from the 65.2 peak the fund touched earlier in the past year.
Options activity is absent entirely — the put/call ratio has been zero across every recorded session, which is consistent with an ETF that trades with limited derivatives activity. There are no options signals to interpret here.
The most recent dividend was $0.2317 paid on March 26, 2026, following a $0.5529 distribution back in mid-2022 — a relatively sparse payout history for an ETF of this type, suggesting distributions largely reflect portfolio income pass-through rather than a structured income strategy.
The short score creeping higher alongside a cost-to-borrow that has stayed persistently above 20% for months is the setup worth monitoring as the fund continues to move with sentiment around 5G infrastructure spending cycles.
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