Short sellers have dramatically increased their bets against WOLF — even as the stock surges. The result: a lending market with zero room left, and costs rising fast.
Short interest in Wolfspeed has hit 86.5% of free float. That's up 50.5% in one week and 109% over the past month.
Every share in the lending pool is currently lent out. Availability has dropped to 0% — the tightest borrow market WOLF has seen in at least a year. Any short seller trying to open a new position today faces a near-impossible search for locates.
The ORTEX short score sits at 76.7, and the utilization rank is 1st percentile — meaning virtually no stock in the universe has a tighter lending market right now.
Cost to borrow stood at roughly 1.3% in mid-April. It hit 6.52% on May 13. That's a 5x increase in under four weeks — and more than double the level from just one week ago.
The 1-month cost-to-borrow increase is 411%. When availability is zero and demand for borrows keeps rising, the only release valve is price.
The setup is striking. WOLF stock is up 170% in one month and 46% in just the past week. Shares short have roughly doubled over the same period — short sellers have been adding aggressively into the rally.
The most recent earnings report (May 5) produced a +20% one-day move and a +49% five-day move. That event accelerated the short-build rather than shook it out.
Options flow has shifted. The put/call ratio rose to 0.68 on May 13, still within a normal range historically but up from lows near 0.37–0.39 seen in mid-April.
T. Rowe Price added 4.6 million shares as of March 31 — now holding 13.7% of shares outstanding. Allianz Asset Management initiated a position of 1.4 million shares in the same period. Point72 added 1.4 million shares as of December.
The CEO sold $1.1 million in shares on May 1 — the only insider transaction in the past 90 days. The mean analyst price target sits at $40, now well below the current price of $62.60.
Availability is already at zero. The next move in the lending market is the cost to borrow — watch whether it accelerates through 10%+, which would signal short sellers are paying a significant premium just to stay in their positions.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open WOLF 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.
