INFQ Shorts Rebuild Ahead of Earnings

Infleqtion heads into Wednesday's earnings with short positions rebuilding fast, even as the broader lending market relaxes — a split in the data that is worth watching ahead of what has historically been a volatile print.

The most striking move this week is the jump in short interest. Estimated short positions climbed 42.5% over five days to roughly 4.2 million shares, taking SI % FF to 2.9%. That's not an extreme level in absolute terms, but the pace of rebuilding stands out — especially against the backdrop of a stock up 8.3% on the week. Bears are pressing into the rally. The build follows a period of heavy covering in late April and early May, when short interest fell from a peak near 3.9% of float in mid-April to a trough of just 1.9% on May 1. The current level is back where it was before that covering episode.

The borrow market tells a very different story from a month ago. Cost to borrow has collapsed from a peak of nearly 112% annualised on April 21 — when availability tightened to just 7.6% — to 2.5% today, with availability now back to a comfortable 202%. In practical terms, the borrow squeeze that made shorting expensive through most of April has fully unwound. New positions can be initiated cheaply, which partly explains why shorts are returning: the cost of being wrong has dropped dramatically. Options positioning confirms the shift toward a more bullish tilt — the put/call ratio has eased to 0.56, below its 20-day average of 0.65, with calls dominating.

Citigroup initiated coverage with a Buy and a $20 target on April 14, the only formal analyst coverage on record. That target implies roughly 53% upside from the current price of $13.10. The firm's initiation coincided with a burst of attention on the quantum computing sector, including Citron Research highlighting valuation gaps in the space. Infleqtion itself has landed two government contracts since then — a $2M DARPA award and a $1M US Navy contract for quantum-inspired RF signal processing. On May 13, the company unveiled a new Quantum Spectrum atom-based RF sensing architecture. The contract flow and product news give the stock a real catalyst narrative, though the absence of any independent EV/revenue multiples in the available data makes cross-sectional valuation difficult.

The earnings reaction history makes the setup more charged. The April 8 print drove an 18.4% one-day gain and a 49.4% five-day move. The March 31 event added 5.5% the day of. The March 11 report went the other way: minus 12.1% on the day and minus 19.3% over five sessions. Those swings — averaging roughly 12% on the first day — put context around both the short rebuilding and the call-heavy options lean. Peers IONQ and QUBT gained 16.4% and 23.2% respectively on the week, suggesting broader momentum behind quantum names right now.

The release scheduled for May 14 is the next defined moment — the question is whether the short rebuilding this week reflects genuine conviction about the downside, or simply a tactical hedge into a stock that has run hard.