PSNL has rallied 16.6% in a week. Short sellers aren't flinching. That tension is now visible across three data sets simultaneously.
Short interest sits at 14.9% of free float. That's up 13.6% over the past week and 15.2% over the past month. Despite the sharp price rise, short positions have grown — not shrunk.
The ORTEX short score stands at 75.6, near a 10-day high. The factor rank for short score sits in the 6th percentile — meaning PSNL carries more bearish lending-market pressure than 94% of stocks in the universe.
Days to cover is 5.8, per the latest FINRA data. That's meaningful for a small-cap name. A sustained rally could force covering.
Cost to borrow jumped to 1.08% — up 57% in one week. That's a sharp move, even if the absolute level is still low by historical standards.
Availability stands at 83%. That is a moderate level — roughly one share still available for every 1.2 already borrowed. The borrow market is tightening but far from squeezed. The 52-week availability low is 2%, hit earlier in the year. There is still significant room to run on the short side from a borrowing perspective.
The put/call ratio has collapsed to 0.10 — a 2-sigma extreme below the 20-day mean of 0.27. It sits near the 52-week low of 0.07.
Options traders are piling into calls, not puts. That's a stark divergence from the short sellers adding to positions in the lending market. Two crowds are making opposite bets on the same stock, right now.
Post-earnings, Morgan Stanley cut its price target to $9 from $10. BTIG dropped its target to $11 from $13, while keeping a Buy rating. The consensus target of $10.86 still implies roughly 54% upside to the current $7.04 close.
On the institutional side, Deep Track Capital disclosed a fresh 5.76 million-share stake as of May 5 — a new position. Casdin Capital also built a new 1.6 million-share position in Q1. Both are specialist healthcare investors. Columbia Management added 1.3 million shares. These are not passive index flows.
ARK Investment Management, already a top holder, added another 116,000 shares in April.
The core question: does the 16.6% weekly rally force short covering, or do bears treat it as an entry point? Availability at 83% means plenty of borrow supply remains. Cost to borrow at 1.08% still makes shorting cheap. The next catalyst is earnings, flagged for August 7.
Data summary
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open PSNL 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.
