NVDL, the GraniteShares 2x Long NVDA Daily ETF, has delivered a 25.6% gain in a single week — and the shorts who stayed are sitting on pain.
Short sellers have been heading for the exit. Estimated short shares dropped roughly 19% over the past month, falling from around 10.5 million in early April to just over 8 million by May 12. The weekly retreat alone ran nearly 12%. That persistent unwind tracks almost exactly with NVDL's price surge — as NVDA rallied strongly and the leveraged wrapper amplified those gains twofold, the cost of holding a short in a fast-rising 2x product became increasingly punishing.
The lending market is fully stretched. Availability has collapsed to roughly 2% of estimated short interest — meaning only one share remains available for every fifty already borrowed. That is not a loose, opportunistic short book; it is a market where nearly every accessible share is out on loan. The borrowing rate has also moved higher. Cost to borrow climbed from around 6% in early April to just under 9% now, up more than 50% over the month, even as short sellers reduced their positions. Tighter availability despite falling short interest reflects how rapidly the ETF's lendable pool has shrunk relative to outstanding borrows — a product of both AUM growth and concentrated demand for what remains.
Options sentiment has swung sharply in the bullish direction. The put/call ratio dropped to 0.48, more than two standard deviations below its 20-day average of 0.60 and close to the lowest reading of the past year. That is an unusually aggressive tilt toward call activity. After weeks of PCR readings clustered in the 0.62–0.70 range, the single-session collapse on May 12 stands out — it coincides with the biggest single-day options turnover of the recent run and aligns with NVDL's 1.2% daily gain that day after a 25% weekly move.
The ORTEX short score remains elevated at 70.1, broadly unchanged across the past two weeks despite the short covering. That persistence is worth noting. Even as short positions declined and the price surged, the score has barely budged — suggesting the structural characteristics underpinning the elevated reading (tight availability, active borrow demand, meaningful absolute short share count) remain intact rather than resolving cleanly. Short interest at 19.5% of float is still substantial for a product that effectively moves at twice the rate of its underlying.
The setup heading into next week is defined by two competing forces: a rapidly diminishing pool of available shares to borrow set against a short book that has already shed nearly a fifth of its size in a month. Whether the remaining shorts can find additional cover — or whether the borrow market tightens further as NVDA momentum holds — is the tension worth tracking.
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