OIO Group has undergone one of the sharpest lending-market reversals of recent weeks — a name that was nearly impossible to borrow just days ago now has ample supply, even as the cost to borrow remains stubbornly elevated.
The lending story here is the standout. Availability collapsed to roughly 12% in early May, meaning fewer than one share was available for every eight already borrowed — a genuinely tight borrow market. That extreme lasted through May 11, with availability touching a low of 11.5% on April 29. Then the picture flipped. By May 19, availability had jumped to 353%, a massive easing of supply over just a week. That swing of nearly 430% in availability in a single week is dramatic even for a micro-cap name trading at $1.84. Short sellers have been returning stock: shares short fell 24% over the same period, dropping from above 101,000 to around 76,400. The directional signal is clear — the short position that had driven borrow to near-crisis tightness is being unwound.
Cost to borrow, however, has not followed the availability story down cleanly. It peaked at 78.7% APR on May 12, eased to the mid-40s range through mid-May, then climbed back to 53.3% by May 19 — still well above the 34%-42% range seen in late April. That divergence is worth noting: borrowing has gotten easier to find, but it remains expensive. That may reflect a lag in market rates adjusting to the new supply, or lingering demand from short sellers who haven't yet returned their stock.
The price chart reinforces the volatility of the situation. OIO traded above $9 in late February and has lost nearly 79% over the past month, closing May 19 at $1.84. The stock edged up 1.1% on the day but remains down 3.2% on the week. The RSI14 reading of 22.6 marks deeply oversold territory — a stock grinding lower with little technical support. Market cap sits near $640M according to screening data, though the snapshot flags it as null, and with FINRA's fortnightly report showing only 45,871 shares short as of April 30 against a days-to-cover of just 1.0, the formal exchange data suggests the short position is modest in absolute terms.
No analyst coverage, earnings calendar entries, or recent insider activity are available in current data — the sole insider trade on record dates back to February 2022, when the President and CFO purchased shares at $10.00, a price the stock is now far below. That data is too stale to carry analytical weight here.
What to watch: the next inflection point is whether cost to borrow begins to track availability lower in the coming sessions, or whether demand for borrows stabilises at current levels despite the loosening supply — that gap between the two will indicate whether the short unwind is genuinely complete.
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