Three independent signals have converged on POET Technologies this week. Short interest, lending availability, and options positioning are all flashing at or near extremes simultaneously.
Since the previous article seven days ago, the situation in the borrow market has deteriorated sharply. Availability has fallen to 13.3% — down from 21% a week ago and from 42% on May 8. That means for every seven shares already borrowed, fewer than one remains in the lending pool.
Short interest now stands at 15.3% of free float. That is up 53% in a single week. The pace of accumulation is striking: bears added roughly 7 million shares in five sessions, building on the sharp ramp that began in early May.
Cost to borrow has reset from its late-April peak above 8% to 4.5% — still nearly five times the sub-1% rates that prevailed through mid-April. The ORTEX short score sits at 66.9, up from 61.5 just two weeks ago. At a short-score rank in the 4th percentile of the universe, very few stocks carry a more concentrated short-side signal.
The put/call ratio hit 0.4258 on May 15 — the highest in 52 weeks. It has since edged back to 0.36 but remains well above the 20-day mean of 0.25. The PCR z-score is 1.4, meaning put demand is running more than one standard deviation above recent norms.
This matters because POET's options market was almost entirely call-dominated as recently as late April. The PCR was 0.09 on April 21. The swing to 0.43 in less than four weeks is a sharp reversal in how options traders are positioned.
The stock fell 22% in a single session on May 15 — the same day the PCR hit its annual peak. It has since given back a further 8% and trades at $13.07. Despite that pullback, the stock is still up 80% over the past month.
The institutional data offers context on who was building positions before the short interest ramp began. Citadel added 1.85 million shares as of the March 31 filing — its largest disclosed position in the stock. Tudor Investment and Millennium both entered fresh positions that quarter. Group One Trading initiated 1.2 million shares.
These are largely quant and multi-strategy funds. Their presence does not signal a directional view, but the timing — ahead of the stock's rapid appreciation and the surge in short interest — is notable.
The key tension is straightforward. Availability at 13.3% means any further short-side demand will meet an increasingly thin lending pool. The 52-week low in availability was 2.4%, reached briefly in late April when the stock was also heavily shorted. Whether the current borrow crunch resolves through short covering or through further stock weakness will define the next chapter for this name. Next earnings are not until August 12.
Data summary
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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