SOXL has lost 12% in a week after a month that doubled its price — and the bears, far from retreating, are pressing harder.
Short interest jumped 43% over the past five sessions to 4.5% of float. That is a sharp reversal from the downward drift seen earlier in the month. The previous two trader notes flagged shorts rebuilding into the rally; that trend has now accelerated materially. Two weeks ago short interest was sitting near 10.8 million shares. It closed Tuesday at 15.4 million. Shorts that were getting squeezed as SOXL climbed past $170 are now adding fresh exposure into the pullback.
The borrow market reflects that demand shift. Availability has tightened to 44.8% — down 45% in a single week. That means roughly one share remains available for every two already lent out, a marked tightening from the relatively loose 82% reading on May 12. The 52-week availability floor is near zero, so there is room to tighten further. Cost to borrow is running at 2.31%, up 6% on the week and sitting at its highest level since the spike above 2.60% in mid-May. Bears are paying more, and there is less room left in the lending pool than there was a week ago.
Options positioning remains more defensive than normal, though the urgency has pulled back slightly from last week's extreme. The put/call ratio is 1.29 — still above the 52-week peak of 1.32 reached on May 15 and sitting 1.4 standard deviations above the 20-day mean of 1.18. That is a persistent, elevated hedge posture. The PCR has not dipped below 1.15 in over two weeks, which tells its own story: options traders are not treating this as a dip to buy cleanly. The 52-week low for the PCR was 0.50, so the spread between where the market sat in calmer periods and where it sits now is substantial.
The ORTEX short score has climbed to 64.0 — a new high for the recent series and up from 56.8 three weeks ago. Every session this month has added incrementally to that score, reflecting the combination of rising short interest, tighter availability, and elevated put demand. It is a consistent, broad-based signal rather than a spike from one isolated data point.
The near-term question is whether the weekly drawdown of 12% has satisfied enough of the bearish thesis to slow fresh short-side flow, or whether the availability squeeze tightens further as shorts dig in.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
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