CLSK headed into this week carrying a rare combination: a sharp post-earnings selloff, a fresh surge in short interest to multi-week highs, and a wall of analyst upgrades all landing within 48 hours. The stock fell 5.8% on Tuesday to $13.47 — and the bears and the bulls are both leaning in harder.
The most notable move in positioning is the short side building after the earnings print. Short interest jumped roughly 10% in one week to 36.1% of free float — up from around 33% in late April, and back near the highest readings of the past six weeks. That's nearly 89 million shares short, against an official FINRA fortnightly reading of 90.2 million shares as of April 30. The borrow market tells a more ambiguous story. Availability, while not disclosed at extreme levels in the snapshot, is consistent with a market where around 30% of the lending pool remains unused — not squeezed, but not comfortable either. Cost to borrow is running at just 0.54%, well below the 0.82% peak seen in mid-April, meaning new shorts are entering cheaply. That combination — heavy positioning, loose borrow cost, but still-elevated SI — describes a crowded short that has not yet faced a funding squeeze.
Options positioning has turned marginally more cautious after the earnings drop. The put/call ratio nudged up to 0.49 on Tuesday, modestly above its 20-day average of 0.47 — not extreme, but the highest single-session reading since late April. That's a far cry from the defensive hedging seen in mid-April, when the PCR ran above 0.60 during the broader market volatility. For now, options traders appear to be taking a wait-and-see stance rather than piling into protection.
The Street responded to Monday's Q2 earnings result with an unusually dense cluster of target raises. Macquarie lifted its target from $18 to $22 while keeping its Outperform rating. Maxim Group matched that move, raising from $18 to $22 on a maintained Buy. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods moved from $14 to $16 on Outperform. BTIG reiterated Buy with a $26 target — the highest on the Street. The consensus mean price target has firmed to $19.54, implying roughly 45% upside from Tuesday's close. Every recent action has been a raise or a reiterate; there are no downgrades in the recent activity. That unanimity is striking given the stock fell 5% the same day. The ORTEX short score of 72.1 ranks in the 5th percentile of all stocks — meaning short positioning pressure is heavier than roughly 95% of the universe — while EPS surprise ranks in the 97th percentile, a signal that the company has consistently beaten estimates despite the recent selloff.
The bull case rests on the AI/HPC pivot and revenue diversification. The bear case is structural: bitcoin mining economics are volatile, the halving cycle compresses margins, and the pivot to HPC infrastructure carries execution risk and upfront capital drag. Both arguments are live simultaneously — which is why 36% of the float is short while institutional holders led by BlackRock (17.4%) and Vanguard (9.8%) remain substantial long holders. Dimensional Fund Advisors added over 6.3 million shares in the March quarter, the largest reported institutional addition in the shareholder table. That kind of accumulation alongside the heaviest short positioning in weeks sets up an unstable equilibrium rather than a settled one.
Peer miners moved broadly lower on the same day: BTBT fell 8.8%, MARA dropped 5%, and KEEL gave back 5.3%. On the week, however, CLSK's +0.4% lagged RIOT (+20.4%) and KEEL (+15.3%), suggesting CLSK absorbed more of the post-earnings selling pressure than close comparable names. With next earnings pencilled in for August 7, the near-term focus shifts to bitcoin price action, any HPC contract announcements, and whether the fresh short interest added this week holds or begins to unwind if the stock stabilises.
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