JZXN — Jiuzi Holdings — is a $1.6 million market-cap Chinese EV retail stock that just became one of the most expensive names to borrow in the market.
The dominant story this week is a violent repricing in the lending market. Cost to borrow has climbed to 465% annualised — up 57% on the week and roughly 80% above where it traded at the end of March. That alone would be notable. What makes it more striking is that availability has collapsed to exactly 0%: every share in the lending pool is currently lent out. There is nothing left to borrow.
Short interest itself has exploded in the same window. Estimated short shares jumped 738% over the past week — from roughly 47,000 shares as of May 8 to over 407,000 by May 12. That move pushed short interest to 35.8% of the free float, up from below 0.7% in the data snapshot's longer-term baseline. The ORTEX short score confirms the acceleration: it sat between 47 and 55 throughout April and the first week of May, then lurched to 80.4 on May 11 and 80.8 on May 12 — a jump of more than 30 points in three sessions. Combined with a days-to-cover rank in the 98th percentile, the borrow market is signalling that shorts have crowded in rapidly and the exit door is now very narrow.
The price action runs in the opposite direction — at least on the week. JZXN closed at $1.19 on May 12, a 32% gain over the prior five sessions despite falling 11% on that single day alone. The combination of a sharp weekly rally and an equally sharp single-session reversal against an extreme short build is the defining tension: either shorts triggered a brief squeeze on the way up, or the sell-off on May 12 marks the beginning of a more sustained re-test as new short positions get established at higher prices. The stock's own earnings history adds to the caution — the last two earnings prints produced a -14% next-day move (February 2026) and a -4% move (March 2026), with five-day losses of 42% and 23% respectively.
What institutional ownership data exists is thin and dated. Sabby Management held the largest disclosed stake at 14.1% of shares as of December 2025 — a firm well known for active short-selling mandates — though those figures are now several months old and may not reflect current positioning. The remaining holder list is sparse, with the top seven institutions accounting for a fraction of the float. For a stock of this size, that translates to a very shallow pool of natural buyers when shorts need to cover.
The setup heading into next week is therefore defined by two competing forces: an availability reading of zero that makes adding new shorts structurally expensive, and a short score that has barely been higher in recent history, suggesting the positioning build is still live. With no earnings event on the calendar and no analyst coverage visible, the next meaningful signal is likely to come from any change in availability or a further move in cost to borrow — either of which would indicate whether the current short crowd is adding or covering.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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