Air T, Inc. heads into the final days of April with short sellers in active retreat — the clearest directional signal on a stock that otherwise offers thin analyst coverage and limited institutional depth.
Short positioning has unwound sharply. SI % FF has dropped from around 2% to 1.69% over the past week, a decline of roughly 15.5% in shares short in seven days and 12% over the month. The move brings shorts to their lowest level in the 30-day window, a meaningful compression for a micro-cap with a free float of just 904,000 shares and a market cap near $57 million.
The lending market tells a consistent story. Cost to borrow has nearly halved over the past month, falling from above 4.8% in late March to 3.31% now — the softest borrow rate of the entire period tracked. Availability is generous at 292% of short interest, meaning the pool of shares available to lend dwarfs what is currently borrowed. That combination — falling shorts, falling cost, ample availability — points to a market where pressure on the stock from the short side is easing, not building. The ORTEX short score, which had been running above 53 in mid-April, dropped to 50.0 by April 28, consistent with the broader softening in short positioning.
The ORTEX factor scores offer limited excitement. The DTC rank registers just 8 out of 100, meaning days-to-cover is low relative to the universe — not a crowded trade. The short score rank of 20 and utilization rank of 24 both sit in the lower quartile, reinforcing the read that short sellers are not particularly active or squeezed here. With utilization running at 26%, well below its 52-week peak of 48%, the borrow market is comfortable.
Ownership is tightly held. AO Partners holds 35% of shares, Farnam Street Capital another 17%, and Nicholas Swenson a further 12%. Those three alone account for roughly two-thirds of the company. The next closest institutional name, Renaissance Technologies, holds just 4%. With such concentrated ownership, the effective tradeable float is extremely narrow, which amplifies the impact of even small short covering moves on the share count in the lending pool. The most recent insider activity on record is a director purchase in November 2024 — modest in scale at $22,500 — and the dataset flags no trades since, so the insider angle is quiet for now.
Price has been softer. AIRT closed at $21.01, down 3.2% on the week and 4.4% over the past month, though Tuesday saw a fractional uptick of 0.14%. Earnings history shows a mixed pattern: the last two reported dates each produced small negative one-day reactions of 0.2% and 0.6%, while a November 2025 print delivered an 8.4% one-day pop. The next event is currently slated for June 26. Between now and then, the key variable to track is whether the short covering of recent weeks holds, or whether any renewed price weakness attracts fresh positioning into a float that remains one of the tightest on the exchange.
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