AST SpaceMobile enters the back half of May with a sharply split setup — shorts at a multi-month high, options traders unusually bullish, and a major strategic holder caught dumping a quarter-billion dollars of stock just weeks ago.
Short interest has accelerated hard this week. The SI % of FF hit 21.3% on May 12, up from 18.9% a week ago and roughly 17.3% at the start of April — a near four-point build in six weeks. The move is not gradual. Most of the weekly jump landed in a single session, with shorts adding over 3% in one day on May 12. At these levels, ASTS ranks in the first percentile of its universe on short score rank — meaning almost no other stock scores higher on ORTEX's combined short-side signal. The short score itself has crept up daily for ten straight sessions, reaching 71.1.
Borrow availability tells the other part of that story. With availability at 29% of short interest, there is roughly one share available to borrow for every three already shorted. That is a tight borrow market, though not the floor — availability has been even tighter historically (the 52-week peak on utilization was 91.6%, versus today's 80.4%). Cost to borrow, however, remains low at 0.80% annualised, which is anomalous given the tightness. It means shorts are not yet paying a squeeze premium to maintain positions, even as borrow capacity narrows. Options positioning diverges from the short side. The put/call ratio has dropped to 0.40, below its 20-day average of 0.43 and near the annual low of 0.38 hit just the day before. Call volumes are dominating, suggesting options traders are positioned for upside rather than hedging against the same risks the short book is leaning into. The two camps are pointing in opposite directions.
The Street sits in a cautious middle ground. The consensus price target is $83.90, against a close of $72.96 — implying roughly 15% upside on paper. But the analyst activity this week reflects the post-earnings turbulence: UBS cut its target from $85 to $80 while holding Neutral, and B. Riley went the other way, lifting from $75 to $85 also on Neutral. Both moves came on May 12, the same session the stock fell 11.6%. Barclays remains the most bearish name in the mix, holding Underweight with a $65 target. The bull case rests on ASTS's unique IP position — the ability to serve standard mobile devices directly from space — and on the potential for its larger BlueBird satellites to deliver a genuinely superior 5G direct-to-cell service. The bear case is structural: a capital-intensive model, persistent operating losses, dependence on third-party launchers, and a fierce competitive challenge from Starlink, which already has a meaningful deployment lead.
The insider picture adds an uncomfortable overlay. Hiroshi Mikitani, the company's largest outside strategic backer (holding 10%+), sold 3.04 million shares in two days across April 14-15, pocketing roughly $271 million at prices between $86 and $91 — well above where the stock trades now. The CFO added a $2.1 million sale in early May. Net insider activity over the past 90 days shows $286 million of net selling. That is a substantial outflow from people with the most direct information on the constellation build timeline. Alphabet and Vodafone Ventures — two cornerstone strategic holders — have not changed their positions. Vanguard and BlackRock have both been adding modestly, with BlackRock filing a 1.27 million share increase through April.
The next formal catalyst is the Q1 earnings call, confirmed for June 12. The most recent print on May 11 produced a 2.8% next-day decline. The setup heading into June is therefore less about whether the satellite rollout story is intact and more about whether the pace of constellation deployment and early commercial metrics are enough to justify the re-rating that the short book is currently betting against.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open ASTS 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.
