Cost to borrow on ZDAI (DirectBooking Technology Co., Ltd.) has surged from 6% to nearly 60% in a single week. That move, combined with availability tightening to 46%, is the headline story — and it sits against a backdrop of a stock already down 55% over the past month.
Cost to borrow hit 59.83% on May 18. One week prior it sat at 6.03%. That is an 871% weekly jump and a 952% monthly move.
For context, CTB had traded in a narrow 3–7% band since early April. The explosion is a single-session repricing event, not a gradual climb.
Availability stands at 46.5% — tight territory, meaning roughly one share remains borrowable for every two already lent out. That level is down 34% week-on-week. The 52-week low for availability is 19.6%, recorded on April 28, so the lending pool has been stressed before. But the CTB spike is new.
The borrowing demand side tells its own story. ZDAI's borrow utilization ranks in the 1st percentile globally — the very tightest. Shares on loan have been holding at 93–94% of available inventory for several consecutive sessions, near the 52-week peak of 100%.
That peak was hit on April 28, the same session when availability touched its 12-month low of 19.6%. The current setup — 94% utilization, 46% availability, and a CTB that just repriced tenfold — resembles that April stress episode, but with a more acute cost signal.
Short interest as a percentage of free float is just 0.15% — a low absolute level. SI is falling too, down 23% week-on-week to roughly 39,650 shares. The absolute positioning is modest.
What makes the lending data notable is the mismatch: a tiny short position has still managed to absorb nearly the entire borrowable float. That implies the available lending pool itself is very small, not that short sellers have piled in. Any marginal increase in demand hits the supply wall immediately.
ZDAI has fallen 55% over the past month. It bounced 22.8% on May 18 — a single-session reversal after the slide. The short score sits at 48.5, broadly neutral, consistent with the low absolute SI level.
An ORTEX stock score note from May 14 flagged a combined score of 29.3, with value at 2.8 and momentum at 3.0 — both near floor levels. A P/B of 63x against a deeply negative ROA of -43.8% frames the fundamental backdrop. Next earnings are scheduled for August 12.
What to watch: Whether CTB holds above 50% or snaps back. A sustained elevated borrow cost with availability below 46% would signal continued structural tightness in the lending pool, regardless of where SI as a percentage of float sits.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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