U.S. Global Investors enters its May 14 earnings release with short sellers in full retreat — and the options market nudging, very gently, toward caution.
The clearest story right now is the short unwind. Short interest in GROW has collapsed by roughly 65% over the past month, falling to just 0.018% of the free float — a level so thin it barely registers as a bearish signal. The most dramatic move came in early April, when estimated short positions briefly spiked above 10,000 shares before collapsing back. That spike has now fully unwound. Days to cover is one day according to FINRA data, meaning there is almost nothing left to squeeze. This is not a squeeze setup; it is a market that has already stepped back from its short thesis.
The borrow market reinforces that picture. Availability remains extremely loose — lending utilization is running at just 0.14%, far below its 52-week high of 13.29%. Borrowing costs have drifted lower from a March peak above 5.8%, settling around 4.3% this week, up modestly from last week but well below where they were two months ago. The combination of negligible short interest and ample availability means there is no supply tension in the lending market heading into the print.
Options positioning has shifted — but only modestly. The put/call ratio has climbed to 0.12, running above its 20-day average of 0.09, though barely less than one standard deviation above the mean. The year's range tells the story: the PCR has swung from a low of 0.0007 all the way to a high of 0.32, so today's reading of 0.12 is near the lower end of that spectrum. Call-heavy positioning has been the default all year. The recent tick higher toward puts is a modest shift in tone, not a directional alarm.
Institutional ownership adds an interesting footnote. CEO Frank Holmes remains by far the largest stakeholder, holding over 20% of shares outstanding as of late April and adding a small number of shares. CWA Asset Management built a position of around 5% of shares over the first quarter, and North Star Investment Management entered aggressively, adding 395,000 shares to reach a 3.2% stake — the largest institutional addition in the ownership table. The most recent insider buy on record dates to September 2022, too stale to carry signal weight, but the institutional flow from specialist asset managers into Q1 is worth noting for a name this small.
The earnings history offers a narrow but consistent pattern. The last three data points show the stock responded positively after each release — moves of roughly +2.8%, +4.7%, and +5.0% over the five days following the event, with one negative outlier of -1.3% the day after the November 2025 print. The ORTEX short score is modest at 27.3, edging down from a brief spike to 28.2 earlier in the month. The factor ranking shows a high DTC percentile rank of 95 — a function of the micro-cap structure and thin float, not elevated bearish conviction.
What to watch on May 14: with shorts essentially absent, the price reaction will be driven almost entirely by the fundamental print, any commentary on assets under management, and whether management signals a resumption of the dividend that went quiet after 2022.
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