BBAI borrow market hits maximum tightness

The lending pool for BBAI is completely exhausted. Every share available to borrow has been lent out. That's the bluntest way to describe what ORTEX data shows as of May 14 — and the pressure is building.

Borrow market locked, cost rising fast

Availability has dropped to 0%. There are no shares left to borrow in the lending pool. This is the tightest the borrow market has been all year for BigBear.ai Holdings.

Cost to borrow reflects that scarcity. It stands at 3.82% — up 71% in one week and up 154% over the past month. In early April, CTB sat below 1.2%. The sharp re-pricing signals that demand for short exposure has overwhelmed supply.

Short interest backs that up. SI stands at 31.8% of free float — 138.8 million shares. That's an 11.1% jump in a single week. The ORTEX short score is 72.5, ranking in the top 4% of the market for short pressure.

Three signals, one message

The convergence here is clean. SI surged. CTB spiked. Availability collapsed to zero. All three moved together in the same week.

That co-movement matters. A CTB rise alone could reflect technical noise. Paired with a 15.5 million share increase in short positions and a fully exhausted lending pool, it tells a coherent story: short sellers pushed hard, the pool couldn't absorb it, and borrowing costs adjusted accordingly.